THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


1 


CHRISTMAS  EVE1IV  DAY 

AND  OTHER  STORIES 

TOLD    FOR    CHILDREN 
BY   W.  D.  HOWELLS 


NEW    YORK 

HARPER    &    BHOTIIKKS    I' f  J5 1. 1  S  II  E  HS 
1  893 


Copyright,  1892,  by  W.  D.  HOWELLS. 


All  rigkli  retened. 


\ 


CONTEXTS 


CHRISTMAS   KVKUV   DAY 3 

TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES -J5 

THE  POXY  KXUIXE  AN'P  THE  PACIFIC  EXPRESS.     .  51 

TIIK   ITMI'KIX-CJLORY 71 

BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY    AND    FLUTTERBYBUTTER- 
FI.Y    .  ....   Ill 


855170 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


"flaring  Bonfires  in  (he  Back  Yard  of  the  Pala.ce"  .  Frontispiece 

••  The  Old  Gobbler  '  First  Premium '  said  They  were  Going  to 
Turn  the  Tablet  Xow  " 35 

Two  Lilt  If  Pumpkin  Seeds 75 

Took  the  First  Premium  at  the  County  Fair 83 

"  'Here's  Otal  little  fool  pumpkin,'  said  the  farmer"    .    .  85 

"  Caught  His  Trousers  on  a  Shingle-nail,  and  Stuck''    .    .  93 

"  'My  saki-s.'  it's  comt'n'  to  life!'  " 103 

Tail  piece .  107 

"  '  Fix  dusters .'    Make  ready  !   Aim!    Dust!'"  ....  1*21 

'•The  General-in-C'tiff  used  to  go  behind  the  Church  and 
Cry" 125 

'•The  Young  Khan  nnd  Khant  entered  the  Kingdom  with  a 
Magnificent  Retinue " 131 

"  S/i«  was  Going  to  Take  the  Case  into  Her  own  Hands  "  .    .  135 

•  Tin  Imam  put  His  Head  to  the  Floor" 13'J 

"  They  began  to  scream,  '  Oh,  the  cow!  the  cow!'  "...  14:i 


CHRISTMAS   EVERY  DAY 


CHRISTMAS   EVERY    DAY. 


THE  little  girl  came  into  her  papa's 
study,  as  she  ahvays  did  Saturday  morn 
ing  before  breakfast,  and  asked  for  a 
story.  He  tried  to  beg  off  that  morning, 
for  he  was  very  busy,  but  she  would  not 
let  him.  So  he  began  : 

"  "Well,  once  there  was  a  little  pig — 

She  put  her  hand  over  his  mouth  and 
stopped  him  at  the  word.  She  said  she 
had  heard  little  pig-stories  till  she  was 
perfectly  sick  of  them. 

"  Well,  what  kind  of  story  shall  I  tell, 
then?" 

"About  Christmas.  It's  getting  to  be 
the  season.  It's  past  Thanksgiving  al 
ready." 


4  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  her  papa  argued, 
"  that  I've  told  as  often  about  Christmas 
as  I  have  about  little  pigs." 

"  No  difference  !  Christmas  is  more 
interesting." 

"  Well !"  Her  papa  roused  himself  from 
his  writing  by  a  great  effort.  "Well, 
then,  I'll  tell  you  about  the  little  girl 
that  wanted  it  Christmas  every  day  in 
the  year.  How  would  you  like  that  ?" 

"  First-rate !"  said  the  little  girl ;  and 
she  nestled  into  comfortable  shape  in 
his  lap,  ready  for  listening. 

"  Yery  well,  then,  this  little  pig —  Oh, 
what  are  you  pounding  me  for  ?" 

"  Because  you  said  little  pig  instead 
of  little  girl." 

"  I  should  like  to  know  what's  the 
difference  between  a  little  pig  and  a 
little  girl  that  wanted  it  Christmas  ev 
ery  day  !" 

"Papa,"  said  the  little  girl,  warning- 
ly,  "if  you  don't  go  on,  I'll  give  it  to 
you !"  And  at  this  her  papa  darted  off 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  5 

like  lightning,  and  began   to  tell   the 
story  as  fast  as  he  could. 

"Well,  once  there  was  a  little  girl  who 
liked  Christmas  so  much  that  she  want 
ed  it  to  be  Christmas  every  day  in  the 
year ;  and  as  soon  as  Thanksgiving  was 
over  she  began  to  send  postal-cards  to 
the  old  Christmas  Fairy  to  ask  if  she 
mightn't  have  it.  But  the  old  fairy 
never  answered  any  of  the  postals ;  and 
after  a  while  the  little  girl  found  out 
that  the  Fairy  was  pretty  particular,  and 
wouldn't  notice  anything  but  letters— 
not  even  correspondence  cards  in  envel 
opes;  but  real  letters  on  sheets  of  paper, 
and  sealed  outside  with  a  monogram— 
or  your  initial,  anyway.  So,  then,  she 
began  to  send  her  letters  ;  and  in  about 
three  weeks  —  or  just  the  day  before 
Christmas,  it  was— she  got  a  letter  from 
the  Fairy,  saying  she  might  have  it 
Christmas  every  day  for  a  year,  and  then 
they  would  see  about  having  it  longer. 


6  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

The  little  girl  was  a  good  deal  excited 
already,  preparing  for  the  old-fashioned, 
once-a-year  Christmas  that  was  coming 
the  next  day,  and  perhaps  the  Fail's 
promise  didn't  make  such  an  impression 
on  her  as  it  would  have  made  at  some 
other  time.  She  just  resolved  to  keep  it 
to  herself,  and  surprise  everybody  with 
it  as  it  kept  coming  true ;  and  then  it 
slipped  out  of  her  mind  altogether. 

She  had  a  splendid  Christmas.  She 
went  to  bed  early,  so  as  to  let  Santa 
Glaus  have  a  chance  at  the  stockings, 
and  in  the  morning  she  was  up  the  first 
of  anybody  and  went  and  felt  them,  and 
found  hers  all  lumpy  with  packages  of 
candy,  and  oranges  and  grapes,  and 
pocket-books  and  rubber  balls,  and  all 
kinds  of  small  presents,  and  her  big 
brother's  with  nothing  but  the  tongs  in 
them,  and  her  young  lady  sister's  with 
a  new  silk  umbrella,  and  her  papa's  and 
mamma's  with  potatoes  and  pieces  of  coal 
wrapped  up  in  tissue-paper,  just  as  they 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  7 

always  had  every  Christmas.  Then  she 
waited  around  till  the  rest  of  the  family 
were  up,  and  she  was  the  first  to  burst 
into  the  library,  when  the  doors  were 
opened,  and  look  at  the  large  presents 
laid  out  on  the  library -table — books,  and 
portfolios,  and  boxes  of  stationery,  and 
breastpins,  and  dolls,  and  little  stoves, 
and  dozens  of  handkerchiefs,  and  ink 
stands,  and  skates,  and  snow -shovels, 
and  photograph-frames,  and  little  easels, 
and  boxes  of  water-colors,  and  Turkish 
paste,  and  nougat,  and  candied  cherries, 
and  dolls'  houses,  and  waterproofs — and 
the  big  Christmas-tree,  lighted  and  stand 
ing  in  a  waste-basket  in  the  middle. 

She  had  a  splendid  Christmas  all  day. 
She  ate  so  much  candy  that  she  did  not 
want  any  breakfast ;  and  the  whole  fore 
noon  the  presents  kept  pouring  in  that 
the  expressman  had  not  had  time  to  de 
liver  the  night  before ;  and  she  went 
round  giving  the  presents  she  had  got 
for  other  people,  and  came  home  and  ate 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

turkey  and  cranberry  for  dinner,  and 
plum-pudding  and  nuts  and  raisins  and 
oranges  and  more  candy,  and  then  went 
out  and  coasted,  and  came  in  with  a 
stomach-ache,  crying  ;  and  her  papa 
said  he  would  see  if  his  house  was  turn 
ed  into  that  sort  of  fool's  paradise  an 
other  year;  and  they  had  a  light  sup 
per,  and  pretty  early  everybody  went  to 
bed  cross. 

Here  the  little  girl  pounded  her  papa 
in  the  back,  again. 

"  Well,  what  now  ?     Did  I  say  pigs  2" 

"  You  made  them  act  like  pigs." 

"Well,  didn't  they?" 

"  No  matter ;  you  oughtn't  to  put  it 
into  a  story." 

"  Very  well,  then,  I'll  take  it  all  out." 

Her  father  went  on  : 

The  little  girl  slept  very  heavily,  and 
she  slept  very  late,  but  she  was  wakened 
at  last  by  the  other  children  dancing 


CHRISTMAS   EVERY    DAY.  9 

round  her  bed  with  their  stockings  full 
of  presents  in  their  hands. 

"  What  is  it?"  said  the  little  girl,  and 
she  rubbed  her  eyes  and  tried  to  rise  up 
in  bed. 

"Christmas!  Christmas!  Christmas!" 
they  all  shouted,  and  waved  their  stock 
ings. 

"  Nonsense !  It  was  Christmas  vester- 
day." 

Her  brothers  and  sisters  just  laughed. 
"  We  don't  know  about  that.  It's  Christ 
mas  to-day,  anyway.  You  come  into 
the  library  and  see." 

Then  all  at  once  it  flashed  on  the  lit 
tle  girl  that  the  Fairy  was  keeping  her 
promise,  and  her  year  of  Christmases 
was  beginning.  She  was  dreadfully 
sleepy,  but  she  sprang  up  like  a  lark — a 
lark  that  had  overeaten  itself  and  gone 
to  bed  cross — and  darted  into  the  library. 
There  it  was  again !  Books,  and  port 
folios,  and  boxes  of  stationery,  and 
breastpins — 


10  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

"  You  needn't  go  over  it  all,  papa ;  I 
guess  I  can  remember  just  what  "was 
there,"  said  the  little  girl. 

Well,  and  there  was  the  Christmas- 
tree  blazing  away,  and  the  family  pick 
ing  out  their  presents,  but  looking  pretty 
sleepy,  and  her  father  perfectly  puzzled, 
and  her  mother  ready  to  cry.  "  I'm  sure 
I  don't  see  how  I'm  to  dispose  of  all 
these  things,"  said  her  mother,  and  her 
father  said  it  seemed  to  him  they  had 
had  something  just  like  it  the  day  be 
fore,  but  he  supposed  he  must  have 
dreamed  it.  This  struck  the  little  girl 
as  the  best  kind  of  a  joke ;  and  so  she 
ate  so  much  candy  she  didn't  want  any 
breakfast,  and  went  round  carrying 
presents,  and  had  turkey  and  cranberry 
for  dinner,  and  then  went  out  and  coast 
ed,  and  came  in  with  a — 

"  Papa !" 

"  Well,  what  now  ?" 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  11 

"  What  did  you  promise,  you  forgetful 
thing?" 

"  Oh  !  oh  yes !" 

"Well,  the  next  clay,  it  was  just  the 
same  thing  over  again,  but  everybody 
getting  crosser;  and  at  the  end  of  a 
week's  time  so  many  people  had  lost 
their  tempers  that  you  could  pick  up 
lost  tempers  anywhere;  they  perfectly 
strewed  the  ground.  Even  when  people 
tried  to  recover  their  tempers  they  usu 
ally  got  somebody  else's,  and  it  made 
the  most  dreadful  mix. 

The  little  girl  began  to  get  frightened, 
keeping  the  secret  all  to  herself ;  she 
wanted  to  tell  her  mother,  but  she  didn't 
dare  to ;  and  she  was  ashamed  to  ask  the 
Fairy  to  take  back  her  gift,  it  seemed 
ungrateful  and  ill-bred,  and  she  thought 
she  would  try  to  stand  it,  but  she  hardly 
knew  how  she  could,  for  a  whole  year. 
So  it  went  on  and  on,  and  it  was  Christ 
mas  on  St.  Valentine's  Day  and  Wash- 


12  CHRISTMAS    EVERY   DAY. 

ington's  Birthday,  just  the  same  as  any 
day,  and  it  didn't  skip  even  the  First 
of  April,  though  everything  was  counter 
feit  that  day,  and  that  was  some  little 
relief. 

After  a  while  coal  and  potatoes  began 
to  be  awfully  scarce,  so  many  had  been 
wrapped  up  in  tissue-paper  to  fool  papas 
and  mammas  with.  Turke}rs  got  to  be 
about  a  thousand  dollars  apiece — 

"  Papa !" 

"  Well,  what  ?" 

"  You  're  beginning  to  fib." 

"Well,  two  thousand,  then." 

And  they  got  to  passing  off  almost 
anything  for  turkeys — half-grown  hum 
ming-birds,  and  even  rocs  out  of  the 
Arabian  Nights — the  real  turkeys  were 
so  scarce.  And  cranberries — well,  they 
asked  a  diamond  apiece  for  cranberries. 
All  the  woods  and  orchards  were  cut 
down  for  Christmas-trees,  and  where 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  13 

the  woods  and  orchards  used  to  be  it 
looked  just  like  a  stubble-field,  with  the 
stumps.  After  a  while  they  had  to 
make  Christmas -trees  out  of  rags,  and 
stuff  them  with  bran,  like  old-fashioned 
dolls ;  but  there  were  plenty  of  rags,  be 
cause  people  got  so  poor,  buying  pres 
ents  for  one  another,  that  they  couldn't 
get  any  new  clothes,  and  they  just  wore 
their  old  ones  to  tatters.  They  got  so 
poor  that  everybody  had  to  go  to  the 
poor-house,  except  the  confectioners,  and 
the  fancy-store  keepers,  and  the  picture- 
book  sellers,  and  the  expressmen ;  and 
they  all  got  so  rich  and  proud  that  they 
would  hardly  wait  upon  a  person  when 
he  came  to  buy.  It  was  perfectly  shame 
ful! 

Well,  after  it  had  gone  on  about  three 
or  four  months,  the  little  girl,  whenever 
she  came  into  the  room  in  the  morning 
and  saw  those  great  ugly,  lumpy  stock 
ings  dangling  at  the  fire-place,  and  the 
disgusting  presents  around  everywhere. 


14  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

used  to  just  sit  down  and  burst  out  cry 
ing.  In  six  months  she  was  perfectly 
exhausted ;  she  couldn't  even  cry  any 
more;  she  just  lay  on  the  lounge  and 
rolled  her  eyes  and  panted.  About  the 
beginning  of  October  she  took  to  sitting 
down  on  dolls  wherever  she  found  them 
— French  dolls,  or  any  kind — she  hated 
the  sight  of  them  so ;  and  by  Thanks 
giving  she  was  crazy,  and  just  slammed 
her  presents  across  the  room. 

By  that  time  people  didn't  carry  pres 
ents  around  nicely  any  more.  They  flung 
them  over  the  fence,  or  through  the 
window,  or  anything;  and,  instead  of 
running  their  tongues  out  and  taking 
great  pains  to  write  "  For  dear  Papa," 
or  "  Mamma,"  or  "  Brother,"  or  "  Sister," 
or  "Susie,"  or  "Sammie,"  or  "Billie,"  or 
"Bobbie,"  or  " Jimmie,"  or  "Jennie,"  or 
whoever  it  was.  and  troubling  to  get  the 
spelling  right,  and  then  signing  their 
names,  and  "  Xmas,  18 — ,"  they  used 
to  write  in  the  gift  -  books,  "  Take  it, 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  15 

you  horrid  old  thing !"  and  then  go  and 
bang  it  against  the  front  door.  Nearly 
everybody  had  built  barns  to  hold  their 
presents,  but  pretty  soon  the  barns  over 
flowed,  and  then  they  used  to  let  them 
lie  out  in  the  rain,  or  anywhere.  Some 
times  the  police  used  to  come  and  tell 
them  to  shovel  their  presents  off  the 
sidewalk,  or  they  would  arrest  them. 

"  I  thought  you  said  everybody  had 
gone  to  the  poor-house,"  interrupted  the 
little  girl. 

"  They  did  go,  at  first,"  said  her  papa ; 
"  but  after  a  while  the  poor-houses  got 
so  full  that  they  had  to  send  the  people 
back  to  their  own  houses.  They  tried 
to  cry,  when  they  got  back,  but  they 
couldn't  make  the  least  sound." 

"Why  couldn't  they?" 

"  Because  they  had  lost  their  voices, 
saying  '  Merry  Christmas '  so  much.  Did 
I  tell  you  how  it  was  on  the  Fourth  of 
July?" 


16  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

"  No ;  how  was  it  2"  And  the  little 
girl  nestled  closer,  in  expectation  of 
something  uncommon. 

"Well,  the  night  before,  the  boys  stayed 
up  to  celebrate,  as  they  always  do,  and 
fell  asleep  before  twelve  o'clock,  as  usual, 
expecting  to  be  wakened  by  the  bells 
and  cannon.  But  it  was  nearly  eight 
o'clock  before  the  first  boy  in  the  United 
States  woke  up,  and  then  he  found  out 
what  the  trouble  was.  As  soon  as  he 
could  get  his  clothes  on  he  ran  out  of 
the  house  and  smashed  a  big  cannon- 
torpedo  down  on  the  pavement ;  but  it 
didn't  make  any  more  noise  than  a  damp 
wad  of  paper ;  and  after  he  tried  about 
twenty  or  thirty  more,  he  began  to  pick 
them  up  and  look  at  them.  Every  single 
torpedo  was  a  big  raisin  !  Then  he 
just  streaked  it  up-stairs,  and  examined 
his  fire-crackers  and  toy-pistol  and  two- 
dollar  collection  of  fireworks,  and  found 
that  they  were  nothing  but  sugar  and 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  17 

candy  painted  up  to  look  like  fireworks ! 
Before  ten  o'clock  every  boy  in  the 
United  States  found  out  that  his  Fourth 
of  July  things  had  turned  into  Christ 
mas  things ;  and  then  they  just  sat  down 
and  cried  —  they  were  so  mad.  There 
are  about  twenty  million  boys  in  the 
United  States,  and  so  you  can  imagine 
what  a  noise  they  made.  Some  men 
got  together  before  night,  with  a  little 
powder  that  hadn't  turned  into  purple 
sugar  yet,  and  they  said  they  would  fire 
off  one  cannon,  anyway.  But  the  can 
non  burst  into  a  thousand  pieces,  for  it 
was  nothing  but  rock-candy,  and  some 

o  v   J 

of  the  men  nearly  got  killed.  The 
Fourth  of  July  orations  all  turned  into 
Christmas  carols,  and  when  anybody 
tried  to  read  the  Declaration,  instead 
of  saying,  "  When  in  the  course  of 
human  events  it  becomes  necessary," 
he  was  sure  to  sing,  "God  rest  you, 
merry  gentlemen."  It  was  perfectly 
awful. 
2 


18  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

The  little  girl  drew  a  deep  sigh  of 
satisfaction. 

"And  how  was  it  at  Thanksgiving?" 

Her  papa  hesitated.  "  Well,  I'm  al 
most  afraid  to  tell  you.  I'm  afraid  you'll 
think  it's  wicked." 

"Well,  tell,  anyway,"  said  the  little 
girl. 

Well,  before  it  came  Thanksgiving  it 
had  leaked  out  who  had  caused  all  these 
Christmases.  The  little  girl  had  suffer 
ed  so  much  that  she  had  talked  about  it 
in  her  sleep ;  and  after  that  hardly  any 
body  would  play  with  her.  People  just 
perfectly  despised  her,  because  if  it  had 
not  been  for  her  greediness  it  wouldn't 
have  happened ;  and  now,  when  it  came 
Thanksgiving,  and  she  wanted  them  to 
go  to  church,  and  have  squash-pie  and 
turkey,  and  show  their  gratitude,  they 
said  that  all  the  turkeys  had  been  eaten 
up  for  her  old  Christmas  dinners,  and 
if  she  would  stop  the  Christmases,  they 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  19 

would  see  about  the  gratitude.  Wasn't 
it  dreadful?  And  the  very  next  day 
the  little  girl  began  to  send  letters  to 
the  Christmas  Fairy, and  then  telegrams, 
to  stop  it.  But  it  didn't  do  any  good; 
and  then  she  got  to  calling  at  the  Fairy's 
house,  but  the  girl  that  came  to  the 
door  always  said,  "Not  at  home,"  or 
"  Engaged,"  or  "  At  dinner,"  or  some 
thing  like  that ;  and  so  it  went  on  till  it 
came  to  the  old  once-a-year  Christmas 
Eve.  The  little  girl  fell  asleep,  and  when 
she  woke  up  in  the  morning— 

"  She  found  it  was  all  nothing  but  a 
dream,"  suggested  the  little  girl. 

"  No,  indeed  !"  said  her  papa.  "  It 
was  all  every  bit  true !" 

"Well,  what  did  she  find  out,  then  ?" 

"Why,  that  it  wasn't  Christmas  at 
last,  and  wasn't  ever  going  to  be,  any 
more.  Now  it's  time  for  breakfast." 

The  little  girl  held  her  papa  fast 
around  the  neck. 


20  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

"You  sha'n't  go  if  you're  going  to 
leave  it  so!" 

"  How  do  you  want  it  left  ?" 

"  Christmas  once  a  year." 

"All  right,"  said  her  papa;  and  he 
went  on  again. 

Well,  there  was  the  greatest  rejoicing- 
all  over  the  country,  and  it  extended 
clear  up  into  Canada.  The  people  met 
together  everywhere,  and  kissed  and 
cried  for  joy.  The  city  carts  went 
around  and  gathered  up  all  the  candy 
and  raisins  and  nuts,  and  dumped  them 
into  the  river ;  and  it  made  the  fish  per 
fectly  sick ;  and  the  whole  United  States, 
as  far  out  as  Alaska,  was  one  blaze  of 
bonfires,  where  the  children  were  burn 
ing  up  their  gift-books  and  presents  of 
all  kinds.  They  had  the  greatest  time  ! 

The  little  girl  went  to  thank  the  old 
Fairy  because  she  had  stopped  its  being 
Christmas,  and  she  said  she  hoped  she 
would  keep  her  promise  and  see  that 


CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY.  21 

Christmas  never,  never  came  again. 
Then  the  Fairy  frowned,  and  asked  her 
if  she  was  sure  she  knew  what  she 
meant;  and  the  little  girl  asked  her, 
Why  not?  and  the  old  Fairy  said  that 
now  she  was  behaving  just  as  greedily 
as  ever,  and  she'd  better  look  out.  This 
made  the  little  girl  think  it  all  over  care 
fully  again,  and  she  said  she  would  be 
willing  to  have  it  Christmas  about  once 
in  a  thousand  years ;  and  then  she  said 
a  hundred,  and  then  she  said  ten,  and 
at  last  she  got  down  to  one.  Then  the 
Fairy  said  that  was  the  good  old  way 
that  had  pleased  people  ever  since 
Christmas  began,  and  she  was  agreed. 
Then  the  little  girl  said,  "  What  're  your 
shoes  made  of?"  And  the  Fairy  said, 
"Leather."  And  the  little  girl  said, 
"  Bargain  's  done  forever,"  and  skipped 
off,  and  hippity-hopped  the  whole  way 
home,  she  was  so  glad. 

"  Ilow  will  that  do?"  asked  the  papa. 


22  CHRISTMAS    EVERY    DAY. 

"  First-rate !"  said  the  little  girl ;  but 
she  hated  to  have  the  story  stop,  and 
was  rather  sober.  However,  her  mam 
ma  put  her  head  in  at  the  door,  and 
asked  her  papa : 

"Are  you  never  coming  to  breakfast? 
What  have  you  been  telling  that  child  ?" 

"  Oh,  just  a  moral  tale." 

The  little  girl  caught  him  around  the 
neck  again. 

"  We  know !  Don't  you  tell  what, 
papa!  Don't  you  tell  what  /" 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE 
TABLES. 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 


u  \YKLL,  you  see,"  the  papa  began, 
on  Christmas  morning,  when  the  little 
girl  had  snuggled  in  his  lap  into  just 
the  right  shape  for  listening,  "  it  was 
the  night  after  Thanksgiving,  and  you 
know  how  everybody  feels  the  night 
after  Thanksgiving." 

"Yes;  but  you  needn't  begin  that 
way,  papa,"  said  the  little  girl;  "I'm 
not  going  to  have  any  moral  to  it  this 
time." 

"  No,  indeed !  But  it  can  be  a  true 
story,  can't  it  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  little  girl ; 
"  I  like  made-up  ones." 

"  Well,  this  is  going  to  be  a  true  one, 
anyway,  and  it's  no  use  talking." 


26   TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

All  the  relations  in  the  neighborhood 
had  come  to  dinner,  and  then  gone  back 
to  their  own  houses,  but  some  of  the  re 
lations  had  come  from  a  distance,  and 
these  had  to  stay  all  night  at  the  grand 
father's.  But  whether  they  went  or 
whether  they  stayed,  they  all  told  the 
grandmother  that  they  did  believe  it 
was  the  best  Thanksgiving  dinner  they 
had  ever  eaten  in  their  born  days.  They 
had  had  cranberry  sauce,  and  they'd  had 
mashed  potato,  and  they'd  had  mince- 
pie  and  pandowdy,  and  they'd  had  cel 
ery,  and  they'd  had  Hubbard  squash, 
and  they'd  had  tea  and  coffee  both,  and 
they'd  had  apple -dumpling  with  hard 
sauce,  and  they'd  had  hot  biscuit  and 
sweet  pickle,  and  mangoes,  and  frosted 
cake,  and  nuts,  and  cauliflower — 

"  Don't  mix  them  all  up  so !"  pleaded 
the  little  girl.  "  It's  perfectly  confusing. 
I  can't  hardly  tell  what  they  had  now.'' 

"Well,  they  mixed  them  up  just  in 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.    27 

the  same  way,  and  I  suppose  that's  one 
of  the  reasons  why  it  happened." 

Whenever  a  child  wanted  to  go  back 
from  dumpling  and  frosted  cake  to 
mashed  potato  and  Hubbard  squash— 
they  were  old-fashioned  kind  of  people, 
and  they  had  everything  on  the  table  at 
once,  because  the  grandmother  and  the 
aunties  cooked  it,  and  they  couldn't  keep 
jumping  up  all  the  time  to  change  the 
plates — and  its  mother  said  it  shouldn't, 
its  grandmother  said,  Indeed  it  should, 
then,  and  helped  it  herself;  and  the 
child's  father  would  say,  Well,  he  guess 
ed  Tie  would  go  back,  too,  for  a  change ; 
and  the  child's  mother  would  say,  She 
should  think  he  would  be  ashamed ; 
and  then  they  would  get  to  going  back, 
till  everything  was  perfectly  higgledy- 
piggledy. 

"  Oh,  shouldii't  you  like  to  have  been 
there,  papa  ?"  sighed  the  little  girl. 


28    TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

"  You  mustn't  interrupt.  Where  was 
I?" 

"  Higgledy-piggledy." 
"  Oh  yes !" 

"Well,  but  the  greatest  thing  of  all 
was  the  turkey  that  they  had.  It  was 
a  gobbler,  I  tell  you,  that  was  nearly  as 
big  as  a  giraffe. 

"  Papa !" 

It  took  the  premium  at  the  county 
fair,  and  when  it  was  dressed  it  weighed 
fifteen  pounds — well,  maybe  twenty — 
and  it  was  so  heavy  that  the  grand 
mothers  and  the  aunties  couldn't  put  it 
on  the  table,  and  they  had  to  get  one  of 
the  papas  to  do  it.  You  ought  to  have 
heard  the  hurrahing  when  the  children 
saw  him  coming  in  from  the  kitchen 
with  it.  It  seemed  as  if  they  couldn't 
hardly  talk  of  anything  but  that  tur 
key  the  whole  dinner-time. 


ITKKKYS    TURNING    THE    TABLES.        29 

The  grandfather  hated  to  carve,  and 
so  one  of  the  papas  did  it ;  and  whenev 
er  he  gave  anybody  a  piece,  the  grand 
father  would  tell  some  new  story  about 
the  turkey,  till  pretty  soon  the  aunties 
got  to  saying,  "Now,  father,  stop!" 
and  one  of  them  said  it  made  it  seem 
as  if  the  gobbler  was  walking  about  on 
the  table,  to  hear  so  much  about  him, 
and  it  took  her  appetite  all  away ;  and 
that  made  the  papas  begin  to  ask  the 
grandfather  more  and  more  about  the 
turkey. 

"Yes,"  said  the  little  girl,  thought 
fully  ;  "  I  know  \\h&t  papas  are." 
"  Yes,  they're  pretty  much  all  alike." 

And  the  mammas  began  to  say  they 
acted  like  a  lot  of  silly  boys ;  and  what 
would  the  children  think?  But  noth 
ing  could  stop  it ;  and  all  through  the 
afternoon  and  evening,  whenever  the 
papas  saw  any  of  the  aunties  or  mam- 


30    TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

mas  round,  thev  would  begin  to  ask  the 

«/ 

grandfather  more  particulars  about  the 
turkey.  The  grandfather  was  pretty 
forgetful,  and  he  told  the  same  things 
right  over.  Well,  and  so  it  went  on  till 
it  came  bedtime,  and  then  the  mammas 
and  aunties  began  to  laugh  and  whisper 
together,  and  to  say  they  did  believe 
they  should  dream  about  that  turkey ; 
and  when  the  papas  kissed  the  grand 
mother  good -night,  they  said,  Well, 
they  must  have  his  mate  for  Christmas ; 
and  then  they  put  their  arms  round 
the  mammas  and  went  out  haw -haw 
ing. 

"  I  don't  think  they  behaved  very  dig 
nified,"  said  the  little  girl. 

"Well,  you  see,  they  were  just  fun 
ning,  and  had  got  going,  and  it  was 
Thanksgiving,  anyway." 

Well,  in  about  half  an  hour  every 
body  was  fast  asleep  and  dreaming — 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.    31 

"Is  it  going  to  be  a  dream?"  asked 
the  little  girl,  with  some  reluctance. 

"Didn't  I  say  it  was  going  to  be  a 
true  story  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  How  can  it  be  a  dream,  then  ?" 

"  You  said  everybody  was  fast  asleep 
and  dreaming." 

"  Well,  but  I  hadn't  got  through.  Ev 
erybody  except  one  little  girl." 

"  Now,  papa !" 

"What?" 

"  Don't  you  go  and  say  her  name  was 
the  same  as  mine,  and  her  eyes  the  same 
color." 

"  What  an  idea !" 

This  was  a  very  good  little  girl,  and 
very  respectful  to  her  papa,  and  didn't 
suspect  him  of  tricks,  but  just  believed 
everything  he  said.  And  she  was  a 
very  pretty  little  girl,  and  had  red  eyes, 
and  blue  cheeks,  and  straight  hair,  and 
a  curly  nose — 


32   TURKEYS  TUENING  THE  TABLES. 

"Now,  papa,  if  you  get  to  cutting 
up—" 

"Well,  I  won't,  then!" 

"Well,  she  was  rather  a  delicate  little 
girl,  and  whenever  she  over-ate,  or  any 
thing,  she  was  apt  to — 

"  Have  bad  dreams  !     Aha  !     I  told 
you  it  was  going  to  be  a  dream." 
"  You  wait  till  I  get  through." 

She  was  apt  to  lie  awake  thinking,  and 
some  of  her  thinks  were  pretty  dismal. 
"Well,  that  night,  instead  of  thinking  and 
tossing  and  turning,  and  counting  a  thou 
sand,  it  seemed  to  this  other  little  girl 
that  she  began  to  see  things  as  soon  as 
as  she  had  got  warm  in  bed,  and  before, 
even.  And  the  first  thing  she  saw  was 
a  large,  bronze-colored — 

"Turkey  gobbler!" 

"  No,  ma'am.  Turkey  gobbler's  ghost.'1'' 

"  Foo  !"  said  the  little  girl,  rather  un- 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.   33 

easily ;  "  whoever  heard  of  a  turkey's 
ghost,  I  should  like  to  know  ?" 

"  Never  mind  that,"  said  the  papa. 
"If  it  hadn't  been  a  ghost,  could  the 
moonlight  have  shone  through  it  ?  No, 
indeed !  The  stuffing  wouldn't  have 
let  it.  So  you  see  it  must  have  been  a 
ghost." 

It  had  a  red  pasteboard  placard  round 
its  neck,  with  FIRST  PREMIUM  printed  on 
it,  and  so  she  knew  that  it  was  the  ghost 
of  the  very  turkey  they  had  had  for  din 
ner.  It  was  perfectly  awful  when  it  put 
up  its  tail,  and  dropped  its  wings,  and 
strutted  just  the  way  the  grandfather 
said  it  used  to  do.  It  seemed  to  be  in  a 
wide  pasture,  like  that  back  of  the  house, 
and  the  children  had  to  cross  it  to  get 
home,  and  they  were  all  afraid  of  the 
turkey  that  kept  gobbling  at  them  and 
threatening  them,  because  the}^  had  eat 
en  him  up.  At  last  one  of  the  boys — it 
was  the  other  little  girl's  brother — said 

3 


34    TUEKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

he  would  run  across  and  get  his  papa  to 
come  out  and  help  them,  and  the  first 
thing  she  knew  the  turkey  was  after 
him,  gaining,  gaining,  gaining,  and  all 
the  .grass  was  full  of  hen-turkeys  and 
turkey  chicks,  running  after  him,  and 
gaining,  gaming,  gaining,  and  just  as  he 
was  getting  to  the  wall  he  tripped  and 
fell  over  a  turkey -pen,  and  all  at  once 
she  was  in  one  of  the  aunties'  room,  and 
the  aunty  was  in  bed,  and  the  turkeys 
were  walking  up  and  down  over  her,  and 
stretching  out  their  wings,  and  blaming 
her.  Two  of  them  carried  a  platter  of 
chicken  pie,  and  there  was  a  large  pump 
kin  jack-o'-lantern  hanging  to  the  bed 
post  to  light  the  room,  and  it  looked 
just  like  the  other  little  girl's  brother 
in  the  face,  only  perfectly  ridiculous. 

Then  the  old  gobbler,  First  Premium, 
clapped  his  wings,  and  said,  "  Come  on, 
chick -chickledren!"  and  then  they  all 
seemed  to  be  in  her  room,  and  she  was 
standing  in  the  middle  of  it  in  her  night- 


TURKEYS    TIKMXG    THE    TABLES.        JJ7 

gown,  and  tied  round  and  round  with 
ribbons,  so  she  couldn't  move  hand  or 
foot.  The  old  gobbler,  First  Premium, 
said  they  were  going  to  turn  the  tables 
now,  and  she  knew  what  he  meant,  for 
they  had  had  that  in  the  reader  at  school 
just  before  vacation,  and  the  teacher  had 
explained  it.  He  made  a  long  speech, 
with  his  hat  on,  and  kept  pointing  at  her 
with  one  of  his  \vings,  while  he  told  the 
other  turkeys  that  it  was  her  grandfa 
ther  who  had  done  it,  and  now  it  was 
their  turn.  lie  said  that  human  beings 
had  been  eating  turkeys  ever  since  the 
discovery  of  America,  and  it  was  time 
for  the  turkeys  to  begin  paying  them 
back,  if  they  were  ever  going  to.  He 
said  she  was  pretty  young,  but  she  was 
us  big  as  he  was,  and  he  had  no  doubt 
they  would  enjoy  her. 

The  other  little  girl  tried  to  tell  him 
that  she  was  not  to  blame,  and  that  she 
only  took  a  very,  very  little  piece. 

"  But  it  was  right  off  the  breast,"  said 


.  38   TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

the  gobbler,  and  he  shed  tears,  so  that 
the  other  little  girl  cried,  too.  She 
didn't  have  much  hopes,  they  all  seem 
ed  so  spiteful,  especially  the  little  tur 
key  chicks ;  but  she  told  them  that  she 
was  very  tender-hearted,  and  never  hurt 
a  single  thing,  and  she  tried  to  make 
them  understand  that  there  was  a  great 
difference  between  eating  people  and 
just  eating  turkeys. 

"  What  difference,  I  should  like  to 
know  ?"  says  the  old  hen-turkey,  pretty 
snappishly. 

"People  have  got  souls,  and  turkeys 
haven't,"  says  the  other  little  girl. 

"I  don't  see  how  that  makes  it  any 
better,"  says  the  old  hen-turkey.  "  It 
don't  make  it  any  better  for  the  tur 
keys.  If  we  haven't  got  any  souls,  we 
can't  live  after  we've  been  eaten  up, 
and  you  can." 

The  other  little  girl  was  awfully 
frightened  to  have  the  hen-turkey  take 
that  tack. 


TUKKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.    39 

"  I  should  think  she  would  'a'  been," 
said  the  little  girl;  and  she  cuddled 
snugger  into  her  papa's  arms.  "  What 
could  she  say  ?  Ugh  !  Go  on." 

Well,  she  didn't  know  what  to  say, 
that's  a  fact.  You  see,  she  never  thought 
of  it  in  that  light  before.  All  she  could 
say  was,  "  Well,  people  have  got  reason, 
anyway,  and  turkeys  have  only  got  in 
stinct;  so  there!" 

"  You'd  better  look  out,"  says  the  old 
hen -turkey;  and  all  the  little  turkey 
chicks  got  so  mad  they  just  hopped,  and 
the  oldest  little  he-turkey,  that  was  just 
beginning  to  be  a  gobbler,  he  dropped 
his  wings  and  spread  his  tail  just  like 
his  father,  and  walked  round  the  other 
little  girl  till  it  was  perfectly  frightful. 

"  I  should  think  they  would  'a'  been 
ashamed." 

Well,  perhaps  old  First  Premium  was 


40    TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

a  little ;  because  he  stopped  them.  "  My 
dear,"  he  says  to  the  old  hen -turkey, 
and  chick-chickledren,  "  you  forget  your 
selves  ;  you  should  have  a  little  consider 
ation.  Perhaps  you  wouldn't  behave 
much  better  yourselves  if  you  were  just 
going  to  be  eaten." 

And  they  all  began  to  scream  and  to 
cry,  "  We've  been  eaten,  and  we're  noth 
ing  but  turkey  ghosts." 

"  There,  now,  papa,"  says  the  little 
girl,  sitting  up  straight,  so  as  to  argue 
better,  "  I  knew  it  wasn't  true,  all  along. 
How  could  turkeys  have  ghosts  if  they 
don't  have  souls,  I  should  like  to  know  ?" 

"  Oh,  easily,"  said  the  papa. 

"  Tell  how,"  said  the  little  girl. 

"  Now  look  here,"  said  the  papa,  "  are 
you  telling  this  story,  or  am  I  ?" 

"You  are,"  said  the  little  girl,  and 
she  cuddled  down  again.  "  Go  on." 

"Well,  then,  don't  you  interrupt. 
Where  was  I  ?  Oh  yes." 


TURKEYS    TUUXIXG    THE    TABLES.        41 

Well,  he  couldn't  do  anything  with 
them,  old  First  Premium  couldn't.  They 
acted  perfectly  ridiculous,  and  one  little 
brat  of  a  spiteful  little  chick  piped  out, 
"  I  speak  for  a  drumstick,  ma !"  and  then 
they  all  began  :  "  I  want  a  wing,  ma !" 
and  "  I'm  going  to  have  the  wish-bone !" 
and  "  I  shall  have  just  as  much  stuffing 
as  ever  I  please,  shan't  I,  ma  ?"  till  the 
other  little  girl  was  perfectly  disgusted 
with  them ;  she  thought  they  oughtn't 
to  say  it  before  her,  anyway ;  but  she 
had  hardly  thought  this  before  they  all 
screamed  out,  "  They  used  to  say  it  be 
fore  us"  and  then  she  didn't  know  what 
to  say,  because  she  knew  how  people 
talked  before  animals. 

"  I  don't  believe  I  ever  did,"  said  the 
little  girl.  "Goon." 

"Well,  old  First  Premium  tried  to  quiet 
them  again,  and  when  he  couldn't  he 
apologized  to  the  other  little  girl  so 
nicely  that  she  began  to  like  him.  He 


42   TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

said  they  didn't  mean  any  harm  by  it ; 
they  were  just  excited,  and  chickledren 
would  be  chickledren. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  other  little  girl,  "  but 
I  think  you  might  take  some  older  per 
son  to  begin  with.  It's  a  perfect  shame 
to  begin  with  a  little  girl." 

"  Begin !"  says  old  First  Premium. 
"Do  you  think  we're  just  beginning? 
Why,  when  do  you  think  it  is  ?" 

"  The  night  after  Thanksgiving." 

"What  year?" 

"  1886." 

They  all  gave  a  perfect  screech. 
''Why,  it's  Christmas  Eve,  1900,  and 
every  one  of  your  friends  has  been  eaten 
up  long  ago,"  says  old  First  Premium, 
and  he  began  to  cry  over  her,  and  the 
old  hen -turkey  and  the  little  turkey 
chicks  began  to  wipe  their  eyes  on  the 
backs  of  their  wings. 

"  I  don't  think  they  were  very  neat," 
said  the  little  girl. 


TURKEYS   TURNING   THE    TABLES.        43 

Well,  they  were  kind-hearted,  any 
way,  and  they  felt  sorry  for  the  other 
little  girl. '  And  she  began  to  think  she 
had  made  some  little  impression  on 
them,  when  she  noticed  the  old  hen- 
turkey  beginning  to  untie  her  bonnet 
strings,  and  the  turkey  chicks  began  to 
spread  round  her  in  a  circle,  with  the 
points  of  their  wings  touching,  so  that 
she  couldn't  get  out,  and  they  com 
menced  dancing  and  singing,  and  after  a 
while  that  little  he-turkey  says,  "  Who's 
it?"  and  the  other  little  girl,  she  didn't 
know  why,  says,  "I'm  it,"  and  old  First 
Premium  says,  "Do  you  promise?''  and 
the  other  little  girl  says,  "  Yes,  I  prom 
ise,"  and  she  knew  she  was  promising, 
if  they  would  let  her  go,  that  people 
should  never  eat  turkeys  any  more. 
And  the  moon  began  to  shine  brighter 
and  brighter  through  the  turkeys,  and 
pretty  soon  it  was  the  sun,  and  then  it 
was  not  the  turkeys,  but  the  window- 
curtains — it  was  one  of  those  old  farm- 


44   TUKKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

houses  where  they  don't  have  blinds — 
and  the  other  little  girl— 

"Woke  up!"  shouted  the  little  girl. 
"  There  now,  papa,  what  did  I  tell  you  ? 
I  knew  it  was  a  dream  all  along." 

"  No,  she  didn't,"  said  the  papa ;  "and 
it  wasn't  a  dream." 

"  What  was  it,  then  ?" 

"  It  was  a — trance." 

The  little  girl  turned  round,  and  knelt 
in  her  papa's  lap,  so  as  to  take  him  by 
the  shoulders  and  give  him  a  good  shak 
ing.  That  made  him  promise  to  be  good, 
pretty  quick,  and,  "  Very  well,  then," 
says  the  little  girl ;  "  if  it  wasn't  a  dream, 
you've  got  to  prove  it." 

"  But  how  can  I  prove  k  ?"  says  the 
papa. 

"By  going  on  with  the  story,"  says  the 
little  girl,  and  she  cuddled  down  again. 

"  Oh,  well,  that's  easy  enough." 

As  soon  as  it  was  light  in  the  room, 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.    45 

the  other  little  girl  could  see  that  the 
place  was  full  of  people,  crammed  and 
jammed,  and  they  were  all  awfully  ex 
cited,  and  kept  yelling,  "  Down  with  the 
traitress !"  "  Away  with  the  renegade !" 
"  Shame  on  the  little  sneak !"  till  it  was 
worse  than  the  turkeys,  ten  times. 

She  knew  that  they  meant  her,  and 
she  tried  to  explain  that  she  just  had  to 
promise,  and  that  if  they  had  been  in  her 
place  they  would  have  promised  too;  and 
of  course  they  could  do  as  they  pleased 
about  keeping  her  word,  but  she  was 
going  to  keep  it,  anyway,  and  never, 
never,  never  eat  another  piece  of  turkey 
either  at  Thanksgiving  or  at  Christmas. 

"  Very  well,  then,"  says  an  old  lady, 
who  looked  like  her  grand  mother,  and 
then  began  to  have  a  crown  on,  and  to 
turn  into  Queen  Victoria,  "  what  can 
we  have  ?" 

"Well."  says  the  other  little  girl, 
"  you  can  have  oyster  soup." 

"  What  else  ?" " 


46    TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES. 

"  And  you  can  have  cranberry  sauce." 

"  What  else  ?" 

"  You  can  have  mashed  potatoes,  and 
Hubbard  squash,  and  celery,  and  turnip, 
and  cauliflower." 

"  What  else  ?" 

"  You  can  have  mince-pie,  and  pan 
dowdy,  and  plum-pudding." 

"  And  not  a  thing  on  the  list,"  says 
the  Queen, "  that  doesn't  go  with  turkey ! 
Xow  you  see." 

The  papa  stopped. 

"  Go  on,"  said  the  little  girl. 

"  There  isn't  any  more."- 

The  little  girl  turned  round,  got  up 
on  her  knees,  took  him  by  the  shoulders, 
and  shook  him  fearfully.  "  Now,  then," 
she  said,  while  the  papa  let  his  head 
wag,  after  the  shaking,  like  a  Chinese 
mandarin's,  and  it  was  a  good  thing  he 
did  not  let  his  tongue  stick  out.  "  Now, 
will  you  go  on  ?  What  did  the  people 
eat  in  place  of  turkey  ?" 


TURKEYS  TURNING  THE  TABLES.    47 

"  I  don't  kno\v." 

"  You  don't  know,  you  awful  papa ! 
Well,  then,  what  did  the  little  girl  eat  ?" 

"  She  ?"  The  papa  freed  himself,  and 
made  his  preparation  to  escape.  "  Why, 
she — oh,  she  ate  goose.  Goose  is  ten 
derer  than  turkey,  anyway,  and  more 
digestible ;  and  there  isn't  so  much  of 
it,  and  you  can't  overeat  yourself,  and 
have  bad — " 

"  Dreams !"  cried  the  little  girl. 

"  Trances,"  said  the  papa,  and  she  be 
gan  to  chase  him  all  round  the  room. 


THE   PONY   ENGINE   AND    THE 
PACIFIC  EXPRESS. 


THE    PONY    ENGINE    AND    THE 
PACIFIC    EXPRESS. 


CHRISTMAS  EVE,  after  the  children  had 
hung  up  their  stockings  and  got  all 
ready  for  St.  Nic,  they  climbed  up  on 
the  papa's  lap  to  kiss  him  good-night, 
and  when  they  both  got  their  arms 
round  his  neck,  they  said  they  were  not 
going  to  bed  till  he  told  them  a  Christ 
mas  story.  Then  he  saw  that  he  would 
have  to  mind,  for  they  were  awfully  se 
vere  with  him,  and  always  made  him  do 
exactly  what  they  told  him  ;  it  Avas  the 
way  they  had  brought  him  up.  He 
tried  his  best  to  get  out  of  it  for  a 
while;  but  after  they  had  shaken  him 
first  this  side,  and  then  that  side,  and 


52  THE    PONY    ENGINE   AND 

pulled  him  backward  and  forward  till 
he  did  not  know  where  he  was,  he  be 
gan  to  think  perhaps  he  had  better  be 
gin.  The  first  thing  he  said,  after  he 
opened  his  eyes,  and  made  believe  he 
had  been  asleep,  or  something,  was, 
"  Well,  what  did  I  leave  off  at  ?"  and 
that  made  them  just  perfectly  boiling, 
for  they  understood  his  tricks,  and  they 
knew  he  was  trying  to  pretend  that  he 
had  told  part  of  the  story  already  ;  and 
they  said  he  had  not  left  off  anywhere 
because  he  had  not  commenced,  and  he 
saw  it  was  no  use.  So  he  commenced. 

"  Once  there  was  a  little  Pony  En 
gine  that  used  to  play  round  the  Fitch- 
burg  Depot  on  the  side  tracks,  and 
sleep  in  among  the  big  locomotives  in 
the  car-house — " 

The  little  girl  lifted  her  head  from  the 
papa's  shoulder,  where  she  had  dropped 
it.  "  Is  it  a  sad  story,  papa  ?" 

"  How  is  it  going  to  end  ?"  asked  the 
boy. 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  53 

"  AVell,  it's  got  a  moral,"  said  the  papa. 

"Oh,  all  right,  if  it's  got  a  moral,"  said 
the  children ;  they  had  a  good  deal  of 
fun  with  the  morals  the  papa  put  to  his 
stories.  The  boy  added,  "  Go  on,"  and 
the  little  girl  prompted,  "  Car-house." 

The  papa  said,  "  Now  every  time  you 
stop  me  I  shall  have  to  begin  all  over 
again."  But  he  saw  that  this  was  not 
going  to  spite  them  any,  so  he  went  on : 
"  One  of  the  locomotives  was  its  mother, 
and  she  had  got  hurt  once  in  a  big 
smash-up,  so  that  she  couldn't  run  long 
trips  any  more.  She  was  so  weak  in 
the  chest  you  could  hear  her  wheeze  as 
far  as  you  could  see  her.  But  she  could 
work  round  the  depot,  and  pull  empty 
cars  in  and  out,  and  shunt  them  off  on 
the  side  tracks ;  and  she  was  so  anxious 
to  be  useful  that  all  the  other  engines 
respected  her.  and  they  were  very  kind 
to  the  little  Pony  Engine  on  her  ac 
count,  though  it  was  always  getting  in 
the  way,  and  under  their  wheels,  and 


54  THE    PONY   ENGINE    AND 

everything.  They  all  knew  it  was  an 
orphan,  for  before  its  mother  got  hurt 
its  father  went  through  a  bridge  one 
dark  night  into  an  arm  of  the  sea,  and 
was  never  heard  of  again ;  he  was  sup 
posed  to  have  been  drowned.  The  old 
mother  locomotive  used  to  say  that  it 
would  never  have  happened  if  she  had 
been  there ;  but  poor  dear  No.  236  was 
always  so  venturesome,  and  she  had 
warned  him  against  that  very  bridge 
time  and  again.  Then  she  would  whistle 
so  dolefully,  and  sigh  with  her  air-brakes 
enough  to  make  anybody  cry.  You  see 
they  used  to  be  a  very  happy  family 
when  they  were  all  together,  before  the 
papa  locomotive  got  drowned.  He  was 
very  fond  of  the  little  Pony  Engine,  and 
told  it  stories  at  night  after  they  got 
into  the  car-house,  at  the  end  of  some 
of  his  long  runs.  It  would  get  up  on 
his  cow-catcher,  and  lean  its  chimney  up 
against  his,  and  listen  till  it  fell  asleep. 
Then  he  would  put  it  softly  down,  and 


THE   PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  55 

be  off  again  in  the  morning  before  it 
was  awake.  I  tell  you,  those  were  hap 
py  days  for  poor  No.  236.  The  little 
Pony  Engine  could  just  remember  him  ; 
it  was  awfully  proud  of  its  papa." 

The  boy  lifted  his  head  and  looked  at 
the  little  girl,  who  suddenly  hid  her  face 
in  the  papa's  other  shoulder.  "  Well,  I 
declare,  papa,  she  was  putting  up  her 
lip." 

"  I  wasn't,  any  such  thing !"  said  the 
little  girl.  "  And  I  don't  care !  So!"  and 
then  she  sobbed. 

"  Now,  never  you  mind,"  said  the  papa 
to  the  boy.  "  You'll  be  putting  up  your 
lip  before  I'm  through.  "Well,  and  then 
she  used  to  caution  the  little  Pony  En 
gine  against  getting  in  the  way  of  the 
big  locomotives,  and  told  it  to  keep  close 
round  after  her,  and  try  to  do  all  it 
could  to  learn  about  shifting  empty 
cars.  You  see,  she  knew  how  ambitious 
the  little  Pony  Engine  was,  and  how  it 
wasn't  contented  a  bit  just  to  grow  up 


56  THE   PONY    ENGINE   AND 

in  the  pony-engine  business,  and  be  tied 
down  to  the  depot  all  its  days.  Once 
she  happened  to  tell  it  that  if  it  was 
good  and  always  did  what  it  was  bid, 
perhaps  a  cow-catcher  would  grow  on  it 
some  day,  and  then  it  could  be  a  pas 
senger  locomotive.  Mammas  have  to 
promise  all  sorts  of  things,  and  she  was 
almost  distracted  when  she  said  that." 

"  I  don't  think  she  ought  to  have  de 
ceived  it,  papa,"  said  the  boy.  "  But  it 
ought  to  have  known  that  if  it  was  a 
Pony  Engine  to  begin  with,  it  never 
could  have  a  cow-catcher." 

"  Couldn't  it  ?"  asked  the  little  girl, 
gently. 

"  Xo ;  they're  kind  of  mooley." 

The  little  girl  asked  the  papa,  "  What 
makes  Pony  Engines  mooley  ?"  for  she 
did  not  choose  to  be  told  by  her  broth 
er;  he  was  only  two  years  older  than 
she  was,  anyway. 

"  "Well,  it's  pretty  hard  to  say.  You' see, 
when  a  locomotive  is  first  hatched — " 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  57 

"  Oh,  are  they  hatched,  papa  ?"  asked 
the  boy. 

"Well,  we'll  call  it  hatched,"  said  the 
papa ;  but  they  knew  he  was  just  fun 
ning.  "  They're  about  the  size  of  tea 
kettles  at  first ;  and  it's  a  chance 
whether  they  will  have  cow-catchers 
or  not.  If  they  keep  their  spouts,  they 
will;  and  if  their  spouts  drop  off,  they 
won't/' 

"What  makes  the  spout  ever  drop 
off?" 

"  Oh,  sometimes  the  pip,  or  the 
gapes— 

The  children  both  began  to  shake  the 
papa,  and  he  was  glad  enough  to  go  on 
sensibly.  "Well,  anyway,  the  mother 
locomotive  certainly  oughtn't  to  have 
deceived  it.  Still  she  had  to  say  some 
thing,  and  perhaps  the  little  Pony  En 
gine  was  better  employed  watching  its 
buffers  with  its  head-light,  to  see  wheth 
er  its  cow-catcher  had  begun  to  grow, 
than  it  would  have  been  in  listening  to 


58  THE    PONY    ENGINE   AND 

the  stories  of  the  old  locomotives,  and 
sometimes  their  swearing." 

"Do  they  swear,  papa?"  asked  the 
little  girl,  somewhat  shocked,  and  yet 
pleased. 

"  Well,  I  never  heard  them,  near  by. 
But  it  sounds  a  good  deal  like  swearing 
when  you  hear  them  on  the  up-grade 
on  our  hill  in  the  night.  Where  was  I  ?" 

"Swearing,"  said  the  boy.  "And 
please  don't  go  back,  now,  papa." 

"  Well,  I  won't.  It  '11  be  as  much  as 
I  can  do  to  get  through  this  story,  with 
out  going  over  any  of  it  again.  Well, 
the  thing  that  the  little  Pony  Engine 
wanted  to  be,  the  most  in  this  world, 
was  the  locomotive  of  the  Pacific  Ex 
press,  that  starts  out  every  afternoon  at 
three,  you  know.  It  intended  to  apply 
for  the  place  as  soon  as  its  cow-catcher 
was  grown,  and  it  was  always  trying  to 
attract  the  locomotive's  attention,  back 
ing  and  filling  on  the  track  alongside  of 
the  train ;  and  once  it  raced  it  a  little 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  59 

piece,  and  beat  it,  before  the  Express  lo 
comotive  was  under  way,  and  almost  got 
in  front  of  it  on  a  switch.  My,  but  its 
mother  was  scared !  She  just  yelled  to 
it  with  her  whistle ;  and  that  night  she 
sent  it  to  sleep  without  a  particle  of  coal 
or  water  in  its  tender. 

••  P>ut  the  little  Pony  Engine  didn't 
care.  It  had  beaten  the  Pacific  Ex 
press  in  a  hundred  yards,  and  what  was 
to  hinder  it  from  beating  it  as  long  as 
it  chose?  The  little  Pony  Engine  could 
not  get  it  out  of  its  head.  It  was  just 
like  a  boy  who  thinks  he  can  whip  a 
man/' 

The  boy  lifted  his  head.  "  Well,  a 
boy  can,  papa,  if  he  goes  to  do  it  the 
right  way.  Just  stoop  down  before  the 
man  knows  it,  and  catch  him  by  the 
legs  and  tip  him  right  over." 

k%  IIo !  I  guess  you  see  yourself !"  said 
the  little  girl,  scornfully. 

"  Well,  I  could  r  said  the  boy ;  "  and 
some  day  I'll  just  show  you." 


60  THE   PONY    ENGINE   AND 

"  Now,  little  cock-sparrow,  now !"  said 
the  papa ;  and  he  laughed.  "  Well,  the 
little  Pony  Engine  thought  he  could  beat 
the  Pacific  Express,  anyway ;  and  so  one 
dark,  snowy,  blowy  afternoon,  when  his 
mother  was  off  pushing  some  empty  coal 
cars  up  past  the  Know-Nothing  crossing 
beyond  Charlestown,  he  sot  on  the  track 

«;  O 

in  front  of  the  Express,  and  when  he 
heard  the  conductor  say  'All  aboard,' 
and  the  starting  gong  struck,  and  the 
brakemen  leaned  oat  and  waved  to  the 
engineer,  he  darted  off  like  lightning. 
He  had  his  steam  up,  and  he  just  scut 
tled. 

"  Well,  he  was  so  excited  for  a  while 
that  he  couldn't  tell  whether  the  Ex 
press  was  gaining  on  him  or  not ;  but 
after  twenty  or  thirty  miles,  he  thought 
he  heard  it  pretty  near.  Of  course  the 
Express  locomotive  was  drawing  a  heavy 
train  of  cars,  and  it  had  to  make  a  stop 
or  two — at  Charlestown,  and  at  Con 
cord  Junction,  and  at  Aver  —  so  the 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  61 

Pony  Engine  did  really  gain  on  it  a 
little ;  and  when  it  began  to  be  scared 
it  gained  a  good  deal.  But  the  first 
place  where  it  began  to  feel  sorry,  and 
to  want  its  mother,  was  in  Hoosac  Tun 
nel.  It  never  was  in  a  tunnel  before, 
and  it  seemed  as  if  it  would  never  get 
out.  It  kept  thinking,  What  if  the  Pa 
cific  Express  was  to  run  over  it  there  in 
the  dark,  and  its  mother  off  there  at  the 
Fitchburg  Depot,  in  Boston,  looking  for 
it  among  the  side-tracks  ?  It  gave  a  per 
fect  shriek;  and  just  then  it  shot  out  of 
the  tunnel.  There  were  a  lot  of  loco 
motives  loafing  around  there  at  North 
Adams,  and  one  of  them  shouted  out 
to  it  as  it  flew  by, '  What's  your  hurry, 
little  one  ?'  and  it  just  screamed  back, 
'  Pacific  Express !'  and  never  stopped  to 
explain.  They  talked  in  locomotive  lan 
guage— 

"  Oh,  what  did  it  sound  like  ?"  the  boy 
asked. 

'-  Well,  pretty  queer ;  I'll  tell  you  some 


62  THE   PONY    ENGINE   AND 

day.  It  knew  it  had  no  time  to  fool 
away,  and  all  through  the  long,  dark 
night,  whenever  a  locomotive  hailed  it, 
it  just  screamed, '  Pacific  Express !'  and 
kept  on.  And  the  Express  kept  gain 
ing  on  it.  ,  Some  of  the  locomotives 
wanted  to  stop  it,  but  they  decided  they 
had  better  not  get  in  its  way,  and  so  it 
whizzed  along  across  New  York  State 
and  Ohio  and  Indiana,  till  it  got  to 
Chicago.  And  the  Express  kept  gain 
ing  on  it.  By  that  time  it  was  so  hoarse 
it  could  hardly  whisper,  but  it  kept  say 
ing,  '  Pacific  Express !  Pacific  Express !' 
and  it  kept  right  on  till  it  reached  the 
Mississippi  River.  There  it  found  a 
long  train  of  freight  cars  before  it  on 
the  bridge.  It  couldn't  wait,  and  so  it 
slipped  down  from  the  track  to  the 
edge  of  the  river  and  jumped  across, 
and  then  scrambled  up  the  embankment 
to  the  track  again." 

"Papa!"  said  the  little  girl,  warningly. 

"  Truly  it  did,"  said  the  papa. 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  63 

"  Ho !  that's  nothing,"  said  the  boy. 
"A  whole  train  of  cars  did  it  in  that 
Jules  Verne  book." 

"  Well,"  the  papa  went  on, "  after  that 
it  had  a  little  rest,  for  the  Express  had 
to  wait  for  the  freight  train  to  get  off 
the  bridge,  and  the  Pony  Engine  stopped 
at  the  first  station  for  a  drink  of  water 
and  a  mouthful  of  coal,  and  then  it  flew 
ahead.  There  was  a  kind  old  locomo 
tive  at  Omaha  that  tried  to  find  out 
where  it  belonged,  and  what  its  mother's 
name  was,  but  the  Pony  Engine  was  so 
bewildered  it  couldn't  tell.  And  the 
Express  kept  gaining  on  it.  On  the 
plains  it  was  chased  by  a  pack  of  prairie 
wolves,  but  it  left  them  far  behind ;  and 
the  antelopes  were  scared  half  to  death. 
But  the  worst  of  it  was  when  the  night 
mare  got  after  it." 

"The  nightmare?  Goodness!"  said 
the  boy. 

"  I've  had  the  nightmare,"  said  the 
little  girl. 


64  THE   PONY   ENGINE   AND 

"  Oh  yes,  a  mere  human  nightmare," 
said  the  papa.  "  But  a  locomotive 
nightmare  is  a  very  different  thing." 

"  Why,  what's  it  like  ?"  asked  the  boy. 
The  little  girl  was  almost  afraid  to  ask. 

"  Well,  it  has  only  one  leg,  to  begin 
with." 

"  Pshaw !" 

"Wheel,  I  mean.  And  it  has  four 
cow-catchers,  and  four  head-lights,  and 
two  boilers,  and  eight  whistles,  and  it 
just  goes  whirling  and  screeching  along. 
Of  course  it  wobbles  awfully ;  and  as 
it's  only  got  one  wheel,  it  has  to  keep 
skipping  from  one  track  to  the  other." 

"  I  should  think  it  would  run  on  the 
cross-ties,"  said  the  boy. 

"  Oh,  very  well,  then !"  said  the  papa. 
"  If  you  know  so  much  more  about  it 
than  I  do !  Who's  telling  this  story, 
anyway  ?  Now  I  shall  have  to  go  back 
to  the  beginning.  Once  there  was  a 
little  Pony  En—" 

They  both  put  their  hands  over  his 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  65 

month,  and  just  fairly  begged  him  to 
go  on,  and  at  last  he  did.  "  "Well,  it  got 
away  from  the  nightmare  about  morn 
ing,  but  not  till  the  nightmare  had  bit 
ten  a  large  piece  out  of  its  tender,  and 
then  it  braced  up  for  the  home-stretch. 
It  thought  that  if  it  could  once  beat  the 
Express  to  the  Sierras,  it  could  keep  the 
start  the  rest  of  the  way,  for  it  could 
get  over  the  mountains  quicker  than  the 
Express  could,  and  it  might  be  in  San 
Francisco  before  the  Express  got  to 
Sacramento.  The  Express  kept  gain 
ing  on  it.  But  it  just  zipped  along  the 
upper  edge  of  Kansas  and  the  lower 
edge  of  Nebraska,  and  on  through  Colo 
rado  and  Utah  and  Nevada,  and  when 
it  got  to  the  Sierras  it  just  stooped  a 
little,  and  went  over  them  like  a  goat ; 
it  did,  truly;  just  doubled  up  its  fore 
wheels  under  it,  and  jumped.  And  the 
Express  kept  gaining  on  it.  By  this 
time  it  couldn't  say  '  Pacific  Express ' 
any  more,  and  it  didn't  try.  It  just  said 


66  THE   PONY   ENGINE   AND 

'  Express !  Express !'  and  then  '  'Press ! 
'Press !'  and  then  '  'Ess !  'Ess !'  and  pret 
ty  soon  only  '  'Ss !  'Ss !'  And  the  Ex 
press  kept  gaining  on  it.  Before  they 
reached  San  Francisco,  the  Express 
locomotive's  cow-catcher  was  almost 
touching  the  Pony  Engine's  tender; 
it  gave  one  howl  of  anguish  as  it  felt 
the  Express  locomotive's  hot  breath  on 
the  place  where  the  nightmare  had  bit 
ten  the  piece  out,  and  tore  through  the 
end  of  the  San  Francisco  depot,  and 
plunged  into  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  was 
never  seen  again.  There,  now,"  said  the 
papa,  trying  to  make  the  children  get 
down,  "that's  all.  Go  to  bed."  The 
little  girl  was  crying,  and  so  he  tried  to 
comfort  her  by  keeping  her  in  his  lap. 

The  boy  cleared  his  throat.  "  What 
is  the  moral,  papa  ?"  he  asked,  huskily. 

"  Children,  obey  your  parents,"  said 
the  papa. 

"  And  what  became  of  the  mother  lo 
comotive  ?"  pursued  the  boy. 


THE    PACIFIC    EXPRESS.  67 

"  She  had  a  brain  -  fever,  and  never 
quite  recovered  the  use  of  her  mind 
again." 

The  boy  thought  awhile.  "  Well,  I 
don't  see  what  it  had  to  do  with  Christ 
mas,  any  w;i  y." 

"  Why,  it  was  Christmas  Eve  when 
the  Pony  Engine  started  from  Boston, 
and  Christmas  afternoon  when  it  reached 
San  Francisco.'' 

"  Ho  I"  said  the  boy.  "  No  locomotive 
could  get  across  the  continent  in  a  day 
and  a  night,  let  alone  a  little  Pony  En 
gine." 

"  But  this  Pony  Engine  had  to.  Did 
you  never  hear  of  the  beaver  that  clomb 
the  tree  ?" 

"No!     Tell—" 

"  Yes,  some  other  time." 

"  But  how  could  it  get  across  so  quick? 
Just  one  day !" 

"  Well,  perhaps  it  was  a  year.  May 
be  it  was  the  next  Christmas  after  that 
when  it  got  to  San  Francisco." 


68  THE   PONY    ENGINE. 

The  papa  set  the  little  girl  down,  and 
started  to  run  out  of  the  room,  and  both 
of  the  children  ran  after  him,  to  pound 
him. 

When  they  were  in  bed  the  boy  called 
down-stairs  to  the  papa,  ""Well,  anyway, 
I  didn't  put  up  my  lip." 


THE  PUMPKIN-GLORY. 


IPRY 


TIIK  papa  had  told  the  story  so  often 
that  the  children  knew  just  exactly 
what  to  expect  the  moment  he  began. 
They  all  knew  it  as  well  as  he  knew  it 
himself,  and  they  could  keep  him  from 
making  mistakes,  or  forgetting.  Some 
times  he  would  go  wrong  on  purpose,  or 
would  pretend  to  forget,  and  then  they 
had  a  perfect  right  to  pound  him  till  he 
quit  it.  He  usually  quit  pretty  soon. 

The  children  liked  it  because  it  was 
very  exciting,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
had  no  moral,  so  that  when  it  was  all 
over,  they  could  feel  that  they  had  not 
been  excited  just  for  the  moral.  The 
first  time  the  little  girl  heard  it  she  be- 


72  THE   PUMPKIN -GLOEY. 

gan  to  cry,  when  it  came  to  the  worst 
part ;  but  the  boy  had  heard  it  so  much 
by  that  time  that  he  did  not  mind  it  in 
the  least,  and  just  laughed. 

The  story  was  in  season  any  time  be 
tween  Thanksgiving  and  New  Years ; 
but  the  papa  usually  began  to  tell  it 
in  the  early  part  of  October,  when  the 
farmers  were  getting  in  their  pumpkins, 
and  the  children  were  asking  when  they 
were  going  to  have  any  squash  pies,  and 
the  boy  had  made  his  first  jack-o'-lan 
tern. 

"Well,"  the  papa  said,  "once  there 
were  two  little  pumpkin  seeds,  and  one 
was  a  good  little  pumpkin  seed,  and  the 
other  was  bad — very  proud,  and  vain, 
and  ambitious." 

The  papa  had  told  them  what  ambi 
tious  was,  and  so  the  children  did  not 
stop  him  when  he  came  to  that  word ; 
but  sometimes  he  would  stop  of  his  own 
accord,  and  then  if  they  could  not  tell 
what  it  meant,  he  would  pretend  that 


THE   PUMPKIN  -  GLORY.  73 

lie  was  not  going  on  ;  but  he  always  did 
go  on. 

"  Well,  the  farmer  took  both  the  seeds 
out  to  plant  them  in  the  home-patch, 
because  they  were  a  very  extra  kind  of 
seeds,  and  he  was  not  going  to  risk  them 
in  the  cornfield,  among  the  corn.  So 
before  he  put  them  in  the  ground,  he 
asked  each  one  of  them  what  he  wanted 
to  be  when  he  came  up,  and  the  good  lit 
tle  pumpkin  seed  said  he  wanted  to  come 
up  a  pumpkin,  and  be  made  into  a  pie, 
and  be  eaten  at  Thanksgiving  dinner; 
and  the  bad  little  pumpkin  seed  said  he 
wanted  to  come  up  a  morning-glory. 

"'Morning-glory!'  says  the  farmer. 
'  I  guess  you'll  come  up  a  pumpkin-glory, 
first  thing  you  know,'  and  then  he  haw- 
hawed,  and  told  his  son,  who  was  help 
ing  him  to  plant  the  garden,  to  keep 
watch  of  that  particular  hill  of  pump 
kins,  and  see  whether  that  little  seed 
came  up  a  morning-glory  or  not ;  and 
the  boy  stuck  a  stick  into  the  hill  so 


74  THE   PUMPKIN  -  GLORY. 

he  could  tell  it.  But  one  night  the 
cow  got  in,  and  the  farmer  was  so  mad, 
having  to  get  up  about  one  o'clock  in 
the  morning  to  drive  the  cow  oat,  that 
he  pulled  up  the  stick,  without  noticing, 
to  whack  her  over  the  back  with  it,  and 
so  they  lost  the  place. 

"But  the  two  little  pumpkin  seeds, 
they  knew  where  they  were  well  enough, 
and  they  lay  low,  and  let  the  rain  and 
the  sun  soak  in  and  swell  them  up  ;  and 
then  they  both  began  to  push,  and  by- 
and-by  they  got  their  heads  out  of  the 
ground,  with  their  shells  down  over 
their  eyes  like  caps,  and  as  soon  as  they 
could  shake  them  off  and  look  round, 
the  bad  little  pumpkin  vine  said  to  his 
brother : 

" '  Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do 
now  ?' 

"The  good  little  pumpkin  vine  said, 
'Oh,  I'm  just  going  to  stay  here,  and 
grow  and  grow,  and  put  out  all  the  blos 
soms  I  can,  and  let  them  all  drop  oif 


TH  E    PUMPKIN  -  GLORY. 


75 


but  one,  and  then  grow  that  into  the 
biggest  and  fattest  and  sweetest  pump 
kin  that  ever  was  for  Thanksgiving 
pies.' 

" '  "Well,  that's  what  I  am  going  to 
do,  too,'  said  the  bad  little  pumpkin 
vine,  '  all  but  the  pies ;  but  I'm  not  go- 


TWO    LITTLE    PUMPKIN    SEEDS. 

ing  to  stay  here  to  do  it.  I'm  going  to 
that  fence  over  there,  where  the  morn 
ing-glories  were  last  summer,  and  I'm 
going  to  show  them  what  a  pumpkin- 
glory  is  like.  I'm  just  going  to  cover 
myself  with  blossoms;  and  blossoms 


76  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

that  won't  shut  up,  either,  when  the 
sun  comes  out,  but  '11  stay  open,  as  if 
they  hadn't  anything  to  be  ashamed  of, 
and  that  won't  drop  off  the  first  day, 
either.  I  noticed  those  morning-glories 
all  last  summer,  when  I  was  nothing 
but  one  of  the  blossoms  myself,  and  I 
just  made  up  my  mind  that  as  soon  as 
ever  I  got  to  be  a  vine,  I  would  show 
them  a  thing  or  two.  Maybe  I  can't  be 
a  morning-glory,  but  I  can  be  a  pump 
kin  -  glory,  and  I  guess  that's  glory 
enough.' 

"It  made  the  cold  chills  run  over  the 
good  little  vine  to  hear  its  brother  talk 
like  that,  and  it  begged  him  not  to  do 
it ;  and  it  began  to  cry— 

"What's  that?"  The  papa  stopped 
short,  and  the  boy  stopped  whispering 
in  his  sister's  ear,  and  she  answered : 

"  He  said  he  bet  it  was  a  girl !"  The 
tears  stood  in  her  eyes,  and  the  boy 
said  : 

"  Well,  anyway,  it  was  like  a  girl." 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  77 

"Very  well,  sir!"  said  the  papa. 
"And  supposing  it  was?  Which  is  bet 
ter  :  to  stay  quietly  at  home,  and  do  your 
duty,  and  grow  up,  and  be  eaten  in  a 
pie  at  Thanksgiving,  or  go  gadding  all 
over  the  garden,  and  climbing  fences, 
and  everything  ?  The  good  little  pump 
kin  vine  was  perfectly  right,  and  the 
bad  little  pumpkin  would  have  been 
saved  a  good  deal  if  it  had  minded  its 
little  sister. 

"The  farmer  was  pretty  busy  that 
summer,  and  after  the  first  two  or  three 
hoeings  he  had  to  leave  the  two  pump 
kin  vines  to  the  boy  that  had  helped 
him  to  plant  the  seed,  and  the  boy  had 
to  go  fishing  so  much,  and  then  in 
swimming,  that  he  perfectly  neglected 
them,  and  let  them  run  wild,  if  they 
wanted  to ;  and  if  the  good  little  pump 
kin  vine  had  not  been  the  best  little 
pumpkin  vine  that  ever  was,  it  would 
have  run  wild.  But  it  just  stayed  where 
it  was,  and  thickened  up,  and  covered 


78  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

itself  with  blossoms,  till  it  was  like  one 
mass  of  gold.  It  was  very  fond  of  all 
its  blossoms,  and  it  couldn't  bear  hardly 
to  think  of  losing  any  of  them ;  but  it 
knew  they  couldn't  every  one  grow  up 
to  be  a  very  large  pumpkin,  and  so  it 
let  them  gradually  drop  off  till  it  only 
had  one  left,  and  then  it  just  gave  all 
its  attention  to  that  one,  and  did  every 
thing  it  could  to  make  it  grow  into  the 
kind  of  pumpkin  it  said  it  would. 

"All  this  time  the  bad  little  pumpkin 
vine  was  carrying  out  its  plan  of  being 
a  pumpkin-glory.  In  the  first  place  it 
found  out  that  if  it  expected  to  get 
through  by  fall  it  couldn't  fool  much 
putting  out  a  lot  of  blossoms  and  wait 
ing  for  them  to  drop  off,  before  it  began 
to  devote  itself  to  business.  The  fence 
was  a  good  piece  off,  and  it  had  to  reach 
the  fence  in  the  first  place,  for  there 
wouldn't  be  any  fun  in  being  a  pumpkin- 
glory  dowrn  where  nobody  could  see  you, 
or  anything.  So  the  bad  little  pumpkin 


THK    I'tMI'K  IX -GLORY.  79 

vine  began  to  pull  and  stretch  towards 
the  fence,  and  sometimes  it  thought  it 
would  surely  snap  in  two,  it  pulled  and 
stretched  so  hard.  But  besides  the 
pulling  and  stretching,  it  had  to  hide, 
and  go  round,  because  if  it  had  been 
seen  it  wouldn't  have  been  allowed  to 
go  to  the  fence.  It  was  a  good  thing 
there  were  so  many  weeds,  that  the  boy 
was  too  lazy  to  pull  up,  and  the  bad  little 
pumpkin  vine  could  hide  among.  But 
then  they  were  a  good  deal  of  a  hinder- 
ance,  too,  because  they  were  so  thick  it 
could  hardly  get  through  them.  It  had 
to  pass  some  rows  of  pease  that  were 
perfectly  awful;  they  tied  themselves 
to  it  and  tried  to  keep  it  back;  and 
there  was  one  hill  of  cucumbers  that 
acted  ridiculously;  they  said  it  was  a 
cucumber  vine  running  away  from  home, 
and  they  would  have  kept  it  from  going 
any  farther,  if  it  hadn't  tugged  with 
all  its  might  and  main,  and  got  away 
one  night  wrhen  the  cucumbers  were 


80  THE   PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

sleeping ;  it  was  pretty  strong,  anyway. 
When  it  got  to  the  fence  at  last,  it 
thought  it  was  going  to  die.  It  was  all 
pulled  out  so  thin  that  it  wasn't  any 
thicker  than  a  piece  of  twine  in  some 
places,  and  its  leaves  just  hung  in  tat 
ters.  It  hadn't  had  time  to  put  out  more 
than  one  blossom,  and  that  was  such  a 
poor  little  sickly  thing  that  it  could  hard 
ly  hang  on.  The  question  was,  How  can 
a  pumpkin  vine  climb  a  fence,  anyway  ? 
"  Its  knees  and  elbows  were  all  worn 
to  strings  getting  there,  or  that's  what 
the  pumpkin  thought,  till  it  wound  one 
of  those  tendrils  round  a  splinter  of  the 
fence,  without  thinking,  and  happened 
to  pull,  and  then  it  was  perfectly  sur 
prised  to  find  that  it  seemed  to  lift  itself 
off  the  ground  a  little.  It  said  to  itself, 
'  Let's  try  a  few  more,'  and  it  twisted 
some  more  of  the  tendrils  round  some 
more  splinters,  and  this  time  it  fairly 
lifted  itself  off  the  ground.  It  said, 
'  Ah,  I  see !'  as  if  it  had  somehow  ex- 


THE   PUMPKIN -GLORY.  81 

pected  to  do  something  of  the  kind  all 
along ;  but  it  had  to  be  pretty  careful 
getting  up  the  fence  not  to  knock  its 
blossom  off,  for  that  would  have  been 
the  end  of  it ;  and  when  it  did  get  up 
among  the  morning-glories  it  almost 
killed  the  poor  thing,  keeping  it  open 
night  and  day,  and  showing  it  off  in  the 
hottest  sun,  and  not  giving  it  a  bit  of 
shade,  but  just  holding  it  out  where  it 
could  be  seen  the  whole  time.  It  wasn't 
very  much  of  a  blossom  compared  with 
the  blossoms  on  the  good  little  pumpkin 
vine,  but  it  was  bigger  than  any  of  the 
morning-glories,  and  that  was  some 
satisfaction,  and  the  bad  little  pumpkin 
vine  was  as  proud  as  if  it  was  the  largest 
blossom  in  the  world. 

"  When  the  blossom's  leaves  dropped 
off,  and  a  little  pumpkin  began  to  grow 
on  in  its  place,  the  vine  did  everything 
it  could  for  it ;  just  gave  itself  up  to  it, 
and  put  all  its  strength  into  it.  After 
all,  it  was  a  pretty  queer-looking  pump- 


82  THE    PUMPKIN -GLOKY. 

kin,  though.  It  had  to  grow  hanging 
down,  and  not  resting  on  anything,  and 
after  it  started  with  a  round  head,  like 
other  pumpkins,  its  neck  began  to  pull 
out,  and  pull  out,  till  it  looked  like  a 
gourd  or  a  big  pear.  That's  the  way  it 
looked  in  the  fall,  hanging  from  the  \7ine 
on  the  fence,  when  the  first  light  frost 
came  and  killed  the  vine.  It  was  the 
day  when  the  farmer  was  gathering  his 
pumpkins  in  the  cornfield,  and  he  just 
happened  to  remember  the  seeds  he  had 
planted  in  the  home-patch,  and  he  got 
out  of  his  wagon  to  see  what  had  be 
come  of  them.  He  was  perfectly  aston 
ished  to  see  the  size  of  the  good  little 
pumpkin  ;  you  could  hardly  get  it  into  a 
bushel  basket,  and  he  gathered  it,  and 
sent  it  to  the  county  fair,  and  took  the 
first  premium  with  it." 

"  How  much  was  the  premium  ?"  asked 
the  boy.  He  yawned ;  he  had  heard  all 
these  facts  so  often  before. 

"  It  was  fifty  cents ;  but  you  see  the 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  83 

farmer  had  to  pay  two  dollars  to  get  a 
chance  to  try  for  the  premium  at  the 
fair;  and  so  it  was  some  satisfaction. 
Anyway,  he  took  the  premium,  and  he 
tried  to  sell  the  pumpkin,  and  when  he 


TOOK    THE    FIRST    PREMIUM    AT    THE    COUNTY  FAIR. 

couldn't,  he  brought  it  home  and  told 
his  wife  they  must  have  it  for  Thanks 
giving.  The  boy  had  gathered  the  bad 
little  pumpkin,  and  kept  it  from  being 
fed  to  the  cow,  it  was  so  funny-look 
ing;  and  the  day  before  Thanksgiving 


84  THE   PUMPKIN -GLOKY. 

the  farmer  found  it  in  the  barn,  and 
he  said, 

"  '  Hollo !  Here's  that  little  fool  pump 
kin.  Wonder  if  it  thinks  it's  a  morning- 
glory  yet  ?' 

"And  the  boy  said,  'Oh,  father, 
mayn't  I  have  it  ?' 

"  And  the  father  said,  '  Guess  so. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it  ?' 

"  But  the  boy  didn't  tell,  because  he 
was  going  to  keep  it  for  a  surprise ;  but 
as  soon  as  his  father  went  out  of  the 
barn,  he  picked  up  the  bad  little  pump 
kin  by  its  long  neck,  and  he  kind  of 
balanced  it  before  him,  and  he  said, 
'  Well,  now,  I'm  going  to  make  a  pump 
kin-glory  out  of  you  /' 

"  And  when  the  bad  little  pumpkin 
heard  that,  all  its  seeds  fairly  rattled  in 
it  for  joy.  The  boy  took  out  his  knife, 
and  the  first  thing  the  pumpkin  knew 
he  was  cutting  a  kind  of  lid  off  the  top 
of  it ;  it  was  like  getting  scalped,  but 
the  pumpkin  didn't  mind  it,  because  it 


TUE    PUMPKIN  -  GLORY.  87 

was  just  the  same  as  war.  And  when 
the  boy  got  the  top  off  he  poured  the 
seeds  out,  and  began  to  scrape  the  inside 
as  thin  as  he  could  without  breaking 
through.  It  hurt  awfully,  and  noth 
ing  but  the  hope  of  being  a  pumpkin- 
glory  could  have  kept  the  little  pump 
kin  quiet ;  but  it  didn't  say  a  word,  even 
after  the  boy  had  made  a  mouth  for  it, 
with  two  rows  of  splendid  teeth,  and  it 
didn't  cry  with  either  of  the  eyes  he 
made  for  it ;  just  winked  at  him  with 
one  of  them,  and  twisted  its  mouth  to 
one  side,  so  as  to  let  him  know  it  was 
in  the  joke ;  and  the  first  thing  it  did 
when  it  got  one  \vas  to  turn  up  its  nose 
at  the  good  little  pumpkin,  which  the 
boy's  mother  came  into  the  barn  to  get." 

"  Show  how  it  looked,"  said  the  boy. 

And  the  papa  twisted  his  mouth,  and 
winked  with  one  eye,  and  wrinkled  his 
nose  till  the  little  girl  begged  him  to 
stop.  Then  he  went  on : 

"  The  boy  hid  the  bad  pumpkin  be- 


88  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

hind  him  till  his  mother  was  gone,  be 
cause  he  didn't  want  her  in  the  secret ; 
and  then  he  slipped  into  the  house,  and 
put  it  under  his  bed.  It  was  pretty 
lonesome  up  there  in  the  boy's  room — 
he  slept  in  the  garret,  and  there  was 
nothing  but  broken  furniture  besides  his 
bed  ;  but  all  day  long  it  could  smell  the 
good  little  pumpkin,  boiling  and  boiling 
for  pies ;  and  late  at  night,  after  the  boy 
had  gone  to  sleep,  it  could  smell  the  hot 
pies  wrhen  they  came  out  of  the  oven. 
They  smelt  splendid,  but  the  bad  little 
pumpkin  didn't  envy  them  a  bit ;  it  just 
said, '  Pooh  !  What's  twenty  pumpkin 
pies  to  one  pumpkin-glory  ?' " 

"It  ought  to  have  said  'what  are1 
oughtn't  it,  papa  ?"  asked  the  little  girl. 

"It  certainly  ought,"  said  the  papa. 
"  But  if  nothing  but  it's  grammar  had 
been  bad,  there  wouldn't  have  been 
much  to  complain  of  about  it." 

"  I  don't  suppose  it  had  ever  heard 
much  good  grammar  from  the  farmer's 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  89 

family,"  suggested  the  boy.  "  Farmers 
always  say  cowcumbers  instead  of  cu 
cumbers." 

"  Oh,  do  tell  us  about  the  Cowcumber, 
and  the  Bullcumber,  and  the  little  Calf- 
cumbers,  papa !"  the  little  girl  entreated, 
and  she  clasped  her  hands,  to  show  how 
anxious  she  was. 

"What!  And  leave  off  at  the  most 
exciting  part  of  the  pumpkin-glory  ?" 

The  little  girl  saw  what  a  mistake  she 
had  made;  the  boy  just  gave  her  one 
look,  and  she  cowered  down  into  the 
papa's  lap,  and  the  papa  went  on. 

"  "Well,  they  had  an  extra  big  Thanks 
giving  at  the  farmer's  that  day.  Lots 
of  the  relations  came  from  out  West ; 
the  grandmother,  who  was  living  with 
the  farmer,  was  getting  pretty  old,  and 
every  year  or  two  she  thought  she  wasn't 
going  to  live  very  much  longer,  and  she 
wrote  to  the  relations  in  Wisconsin,  and 
everywhere,  that  if  they  expected  to  see 
her  alive  again,  they  had  better  come 


90  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

this  time,  and  bring  all  their  families. 
She  kept  doing  it  till  she  was  about 
ninety,  and  then  she  just  concluded  to 
live  along  and  not  mind  how  old  she 
was.  But  this  was  just  before  her 
eighty  -  ninth  birthday,  and  she  had 
drummed  up  so  many  sons  and  sons-in- 
law,  and  daughters  and  daughters-in- 
law,  and  grandsons  and  great-grandsons, 
and  granddaughters  and  great-grand 
daughters,  that  the  house  was  perfectly 
packed  writh  them.  They  had  to  sleep 
on  the  floor,  a  good  many  of  them,  and 
you  could  hardly  step  for  them ;  the 
boys  slept  in  the  barn,  and  they  laughed 
and  cut  up  so  the  whole  night  that  the 
roosters  thought  it  was  morning,  and 
kept  crowing  till  they  made  their  throats 
sore,  and  had  to  wear  wet  compresses 
round  them  every  night  for  a  week 
afterwards." 

When  the  papa  said  anything  like 
this  the  children  had  a  right  to  pound 
him,  but  they  were  so  anxious  not  to 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  91 

have  him  stop,  that  this  time  they  did 
not  do  it.  They  said,  "  Go  on,  go  on !" 
and  the  little  girl  said,  "  And  then  the 
tables !" 

"  Tables  ?  Well,  I  should  think  so ! 
They  got  all  the  tables  there  were  in 
the  house,  up  stairs  and  down,  for  din 
ner  Thanksgiving  Day,  and  they  took 
the  grandmother's  work-stand  and  put 
it  at  the  head,  and  she  sat  down  there ; 
only  she  was  so  used  to  knitting  by  that 
table  that  she  kept  looking  for  her 
knitting-needles  all  through  dinner,  and 
couldn't  seem  to  remember  what  it  was 
she  was  missing.  The  other  end  of  the 
table  was  the  carpenter's  bench  that 
they  brought  in  out  of  the  barn,  and 
they  put  the  youngest  and  funniest  papa 
at  that.  The  tables  stretched  from  the 
kitchen  into  the  dining-room,  and  clear 
through  that  out  into  the  hall,  and 
across  into  the  parlor.  They  hadn't 
table-cloths  enough  to  go  the  whole 
length,  and  the  end  of  the  carpenter's 


92  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

bench,  where  the  funniest  papa  sat,  was 
bare,  and  all  through  dinner-time  he 
kept  making  fun.  .  The  vise  was  right 
at  the  corner,  and  when  he  got  his  help 
of  turkey,  he  pretended  that  it  was  so 
tough  he  had  to  fasten  the  bone  in  the 
vise,  and  cut  the  meat  off  with  his  knife 
like  a  draw-shave." 

"It  was  the  drumstick,  I  suppose, 
papa  ?"  said  the  boy.  "  A  turkey's  drum 
stick  is  all  full  of  little  wooden  splinters, 
anyway." 

"And  what  did  the  mamma  say?" 
asked  the  little  girl. 

"  Oh,  she  kept  saying, '  Xow  you  be 
have  !'  and, '  Well,  I  should  think  you'd 
be  ashamed !'  but  the  funniest  papa  didn't 
mind  her  a  bit ;  and  everybody  laughed 
till  they  could  hardly  stand  it.  All  this 
time  the  boys  were  out  in  the  barn, 
waiting  for  the  second  table,  and  play 
ing  round.  The  farmer's  boy  went  up 
to  his  room  over  the  wrood-shed,  and  got 
in  at  the  garret  window,  and  brought 


"CAUGHT  HIS  TROUSERS  ON  A  SHINGLE  NAIL,  AND  STUCK. 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  95 

out  the  pumpkin-glory.  Only  he  began 
to  slip  when  he  was  coming  clown  the 
roof,  and  he'd  have  slipped  clear  off  if 
he  hadn't  caught  his  trousers  on  a  shin 
gle-nail,  and  stuck.  It  made  a  prett}- 
bad  tear,  but  the  other  boys  pinned  it 
up  so  that  it  wouldn't  show,  and  -the 
pumpkin-glory  wasn't  hurt  a  bit.  They 
all  said  that  it  was  about  the  best  jack- 
o'-lantern  they  almost  ever  saw,  on  ac 
count  of  the  long  neck  there  was  to  it ; 
and  they  made  a  plan  to  stick  the  end 
of  the  neck  into  the  top  of  the  pump, 
and  have  fun  hearing  what  the  folks 
would  say  when  they  came  out  after 
dark  and  saw  it  all  lit  up;  and  then 
they  noticed  the  pigpen  at  the  corner 
of  the  barn,  and  began  to  plague  the 
pig,  and  so  many  of  them  got  up  on  the 
pen  that  they  broke  the  middle  board 
off;  and  they  didn't  like  to  nail  it  on 
again  because  it  was  Thanksgiving  Day, 
and  you  mustn't  hammer  or  anything; 
so  they  just  stuck  it  up  in  its  place  with 


96  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

a  piece  of  wood  against  it,  and  the  boy 
said  he  would  fix  it  in  the  morning. 

"The  grown  folks  stayed  so  long  at 
the  table  that  it  was  nearly  dark  when 
the  boys  got  to  it,  and  they  would  have 
been  almost  starved  if  the  farm -boy 
hadn't  brought  out  apples  and  dough 
nuts  every  little  while.  As  it  was,  they 
were  pretty  hungry,  and  they  began  on 
the  pumpkin  pie  at  once,  so  as  to  keep 
eating  till  the  mother  and  the  other 
mothers  that  were  helping  could  get 
some  of  the  things  out  of  the  oven  that 
they  had  been  keeping  hot  for  the  boys. 
The  pie  was  so  nice  that  they  kept  eat 
ing  at  it  all  along,  and  the  mother  told 
them  about  the  good  little  pumpkin  that 
it  was  made  of,  and  how  the  good  little 
pumpkin  had  never  had  any  wish  from 
the  time  it  was  nothing  but  a  seed,  ex 
cept  to  grow  up  and  be  made  into  pies 
and  eaten  at  Thanksgiving;  and  they 
must  all  try  to  be  good,  too,  and  grow 
up  and  do  likewise.  The  boys  didn't 


THE    PUMPKIN  -GLORY.  97 

say  anything,  because  their  mouths  were 
so  full,  but  they  looked  at  each  other 
and  winked  their  left  eyes.  There  were 
about  forty  or  fifty  of  them,  and  when 
they  all  winked  their  left  eyes  it  made 
it  so  dark  you  could  hardly  see ;  and 
the  mother  got  the  lamp ;  but  the  "oth 
er  mothers  saw  what  the  boys  were  do 
ing,  and  they  just  shook  them  till  they 
opened  their  eyes  and  stopped  their  mis 
chief." 

"  Show  how  they  looked !"  said  the 
boy. 

"  I  can't  show  how  fifty  boys  looked," 
said  the  papa.  "But  they  looked  a 
good  deal  like  the  pumpkin-glory  that 
was  waiting  quietly  in  the  barn  for 
them  to  get  through,  and  come  out  and 
have  some  fun  with  it.  When  they 
had  all  eaten  so  much  that  they  could 
hardly  stand  up,  they  got  down  from 
the  table,  and  grabbed  their  hats,  and 
started  for  the  door.  But  they  had  to 
go  out  the  back  way,  because  the  table 


98  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

took  up  the  front  entry,  and  that  gave 
the  farmer's  boy  a  chance  to  find  a 
piece  of  candle  out  in  the  kitchen  and 
some  matches ;  and  then  they  rushed 
to  the  barn.  It  was  so  dark  there  al 
ready  that  they  thought  they  had  bet 
ter  light  up  the  pumpkin-glory  and  try 
it.  They  lit  it  up,  and  it  worked  splen 
didly  ;  but  they  forgot  to  put  out  the 
match,  and  it  caught  some  straw  on  the 
barn  floor,  and  a  little  more  and  it  would 
have  burnt  the  barn  down.  The  boys 
stamped  the  fire  out  in  about  half  a 
second ;  and  after  that  they  Avaited  till 
it  was  dark  outside  before  they  lit  up 
the  pumpkin -glory  again.  Then  they 
all  bent  down  over  it  to  keep  the  wind 
from  blowing  the  match  anywhere,  and 
pretty  soon  it  was  lit  up,  and  the  farm 
er's  boy  took  the  pumpkin-glory  by  its 
long  neck,  and  stuck  the  point  in  the 
hole  in  the  top  of  the  pump;  and  just 
then  the  funniest  papa  came  round  the 
corner  of  the  wood-house,  and  said : 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  99 

"  '  What  have  you  got  there,  boys  ? 
Jack-o'-lantern  ?  Well,  well.  That's  a 
good  one !' 

"  He  came  up  and  looked  at  the  pump 
kin-glory,  and  he  bent  back  and  he  bent 
forward,  and  he  doubled  down  and  he 
straightened  up,  and  laughed  tilUhe  boys 
thought  he  was  going  to  kill  himself. 

"  They  had  all  intended  to  burst  into 
an  Indian  yell,  and  dance  round  the 
pumpkin-glory ;  but  the  funniest  papa 
said,  *  Now  all  you  fellows  keep  still 
half  a  minute,'  and  the  next  thing  they 
knew  he  ran  into  the  house,  and  came 
out,  walking  his  wife  before  him  with 
both  his  hands  over  her  eyes.  Then 
the  boys  saw  he  was  going  to  have 
some  fun  with  her,  and  they  kept  as 
still  as  mice,  and  waited  till  he  walked 
her  up  to  the  pumpkin-glory ;  and  she 
was  saying  all  the  time, '  Now,  John,  if 
this  is  some  of  your  fooling,  I'll  give 
it  to  you."  When  he  got  her  close  up 
he  took  away  his  hands,  and  she  gave  a 


100  THE   PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

kind  of  a  whoop,  and  then  she  began  to 
laugh,  the  pumpkin-glory  was  so  funny, 
and  to  chase  the  funniest  papa  all  round 
the  yard  to  box  his  ears,  and  as  soon  as 
she  had  boxed  them  she  said,  '  ISTow 
let's  go  in  and  send  the  rest  out,'  and  in 
about  a  quarter  of  a  second  all  the  oth 
er  papas  came  out,  holding  their  hands 
over  the  other  mothers'  eyes  till  they 
got  them  up  to  the  pumpkin-glory ;  and 
then  there  was  such  a  yelling  and  laugh 
ing  and  chasing  and  ear -boxing  that 
you  never  heard  anything  like  it ;  and 
all  at  once  the  funniest  papa  hallooed 
out :  '  Where's  gramma  ?  Gramma's  got 
to  see  it !  Grandma'll  enjoy  it.  It's 
just  gramma's  kind  of  joke,'  and  then 
the  mothers  all  got  round  him  and  said 
he  shouldn't  fool  the  grandmother,  any 
way  ;  and  he  said  he  wasn't  going  to : 
he  was  just  going  to  bring  her  out  and 
let  her  see  it ;  and  his  wife  went  along 
with  him  to  watch  that  he  didn't  begin 
acting  up. 


THE    PUMPKIN  -  GLORY.  101 

"  The  grandmother  had  been  sitting 
all  alone  in  her  room  ever  since  dinner ; 
because  she  was  always  afraid  somehow 
that  if  you  enjoyed  yourself  it  was  a 
sign  you  were  going  to  suffer  for  it,  and 
she  had  enjoyed  herself  a  good  deal 
that  day,  and  she  was  feeling  awfully 
about  it.  When  the  funniest  papa  and 
his  wife  came  in  she  said,  'What  is  it? 
What  is  it  ?  Is  the  world  a-burnin'  up  ? 
Well,  you  got  to  wrap  up  warm,  then, 
or  you'll  ketch  your  death  o'  cold  run- 
nin'  and  then  stoppin'  to  rest  with  your 
pores  all  open !' 

"  The  funniest  papa's  wife  she  went 
up  and  kissed  her,  and  said, '  No,  grand 
mother,  the  world's  all  right,'  and  then 
she  told  her  just  how  it  was,  and  how 
they  wanted  her  to  come  out  and  see  the 
jack-o'-lantern,  just  to  please  the  chil 
dren  ;  and  she  must  come,  any  way,  be 
cause  it  was  the  funniest  jack-o'-lantern 
there  ever  was,  and  then  she  told  how 
the  funniest  papa  had  fooled  her,  and 


102  'THE  PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

then  how  they  had  got  the  other  papas 
to  fool  the  other  mothers,  and  they  had 
all  had  the  greatest  fun  then  you  ever 
saw.  All  the  time  she  kept  putting  on 
her  things  for  her,  and  the  grandmother 
seemed  to  get  quite  in  the  notion,  and 
she  laughed -a  little,  and  they  thought 
she  was  going  to  enjoy  it  as  much  as 
anybody  ;  they  really  did,  because  they 
were  all  very  tender  of  her,  and  they 
wouldn't  have  scared  her  for  anything, 
and  everybody  kept  cheering  her  up  and 
telling  her  how  much  they  knew  she 
would  like  it,  till  they  got  her  to  the 
pump.  The  little  pumpkin -glory  was 
feeling  awfully  proud  and  self-satisfied  ; 
for  it  had  never  seen  any  flower  or  any 
vegetable  treated  with  half  so  much 
honor  by  human  beings.  It  wasn't  sure 
at  first  that  it  was  very  nice  to  be  laugh 
ed  at  so  much,  but  after  a  while  it  be 
gan  to  conclude  that  the  papas  and  the 
mammas  were  just  laughing  at  the  joke 
of  the  whole  thing.  When  the  old 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY.  105 

grandmother  got  up  close,  it  thought  it 
would  do  something  extra  to  please  her ; 
or  else  the  heat  of  the  candle  had  dried 
it  up  so  that  it  cracked  without  intend 
ing  to.  Anyway,  it  tried  to  give  a  very 
broad  grin,  and  all  of  a  sudden  it  split 
its  mouth  from  ear  to  ear." 

"  You  didn't  say  it  had  any  ears  be 
fore,"  said  the  boy. 

"  No ;  it  had  them  behind,"  said  the 
papa ;  and  the  boy  felt  like  giving  him 
just  one  pound ;  but  he  thought  it  might 
stop  the  story,  and  so  he  let  the  papa 
go  on. 

"  As  soon  as  the  grandmother  saw  it 
open  its  mouth  that  way  she  just  gave 
one  scream,  '  My  sakes !  It's  comin'  to 
life !'  And  she  threw  up  her  arms,  and 
she  threw  up  her  feet,  and  if  the  funni 
est  papa  hadn't  been  there  to  catch  her, 
and  if  there  hadn't  been  forty  or  fifty 
other  sons  and  daughters,  and  grandsons 
and  daughters,  and  great-grandsons  and 
great  -  granddaughters,  very  likely  she 


106  THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 

might  have  fallen.  As  it  was,  they  piled 
round  her,  and  kept  her  up ;  but  there 
were  so  many  of  them  they  jostled  the 
pump,  and  the  first  thing  the  pumpkin- 
glory  knew,  it  fell  down  and  burst  open  ; 
and  the  pig  that  the  boys  had  plagued, 
and  that  had  kept  squealing  all  the  time 
because  it  thought  that  the  people  had 
come  out  to  feed  it,  knocked  the  loose 
board  off  its  pen,  and  flew  out  and  gob 
bled  the  pumpkin-glory  up,  candle  and 
all,  and  that  was  the  end  of  the  proud 
little  pumpkin-glory." 

"  And  when  the  pig  ate  the  candle  it 
looked  like  the  magician  when  he  puts 
burning  tow  in  his  mouth,"  said  the 
boy. 

"  Exactly,"  said  the  papa. 

The  children  were  both  silent  for  a 
moment.  Then  the  boy  said,  "  This  story 
never  had  any  moral,  I  believe,  papa  ?" 

"•Not  a  bit,"  said  the  papa.  "  Unless," 
he  added,  "  the  moral  was  that  you  had 
better  not  be  ambitious,  unless  you  want 


THE    PUMPKIN -GLORY. 


107 


to  come  to  the  sad  end  of  this  proud 
little  pumpkin-glory." 

"  Why,  but  the  good  little  pumpkin 
was  eaten  up,  too,"  said  the  boy. 

"  That's  true,"  the  papa  acknowl 
edged. 

"  Well,"  said  the  little  girl,  "  there's 
a  great  deal  of  difference  between  being- 
eaten  by  persons  and  eaten  by  pigs." 

"All  the  difference  in  the  world,"  said 
the  papa ;  and  he  laughed,  and  ran  out 
of  the  library  before  the  boy  could  get 
at  him. 


BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 
FLUTTERBYBUTTERFLY. 


ONE  morning  when  the  papa  was  on 
a  visit  to  the  grandfather,  the  nephew 
and  the  niece  came  rushing  into  his  room 
and  got  into  bed  with  him.  He  pre 
tended  to  be  asleep,  and  even  when  they 
grabbed  hold  of  him  and  shook  him,  he 
just  let  his  teeth  clatter,  and  made  no 
sign  of  waking  up.  But  they  knew  he 
was  fooling,  and  they  kept  shaking  him 
till  he  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  round, 
and  said,  *'Oh,  oh!  where  am  I?"  as  if 
he  were  all  bewildered. 

"You're  in  bed  with  w*/"  they  shout 
ed  ;  and  they  acted  as  if  they  were 
afraid  he  would  try  to  get  away  from 


112  BTJTTEKFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

them  by  the  way  they  held  on  to  his 
arms. 

But  he  lay  quite  still,  and  he  only 
said,  "  I  should  say  you  were  in  bed  with 
me.  It  seems  to  be  my  bed." 

"It's  the  same  thing!"  said  the 
nephew. 

"  How  do  you  make  that  out  ?"  asked 
the  papa.  "  It's  the  same  thing  if  it's 
enchantment.  But  if  it  isn't,  it  isn't." 

The  niece  said,  "  What  enchantment  ?" 
for  she  thought  that  would  be  a  pretty 
good  chance  to  get  what  they  had  come 
for. 

She  was  perfectly  delighted,  and  gave 
a  joyful  thrill  all  over  when  the  papa 
said,  "  Oh,  that's  a  long  story." 

"  "Well,  the  longer  the  better,  /  should 
say;  shouldn't  you,  brother?"  she  re 
turned. 

The  nephew  hemmed  twice  in  his 
throat,  and  asked,  drowsily,  "Is  it  a 
little-pig  story, or  a  fairy-prince  story?" 
for  he  had  heard  from  his  cousins  that 


FLUTTEKBYBUTTERFLY.  113 

their  papa  would  tell  you  a  little -pig 
story  if  he  got  the  chance ;  and  you  had 
to  look  out  and  ask  him  which  it  was 
going  to  be  beforehand. 

"Well,  I  can't  tell,"  said  the  papa. 
"  It's  a  fairy-prince  story  to  begin  with, 
but  it  may  turn  out  a  little-pig  story 
before  it  gets  to  the  end.  It  depends 
upon  how  the  Prince  behaves. '  But  Pm 
not  anxious  to  tell  it,"  and  the  papa  put 
his  face  into  the  pillow  and  pretended 
to  fall  instantly  asleep  again. 

"Now,  brother,  you  see!"  said  the 
niece.  "  Being  so  particular  !" 

"  Well,  sister,"  said  the  nephew,  "  it 
wasn't  my  fault.  I  had  to  ask  him. 
You  know  what  they  said." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  we've  got  to  wake 
him  up  all  over  again,"  said  the  niece, 
with  a  little  sigh;  and  they  began 
to  pull  at  the  papa  this  way  and  that, 
but  they  could  not  budge  him.  As 
soon  as  they  stopped,  he  opened  his 
eyes. 

8 


114  BUTTEKFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

"  Now  don't  say,  '  Where  am  I  ?'  " 
said  the  niece. 

The  papa  could  not  help  laughing,  be 
cause  that  was  just  the  very  thing  he 
was  going  to  say.  "  Well,  all  right ! 
What  about  that  story  ?  Do  you  want 
to  hear  it,  and  take  your  chances  of  its 
being  a  Prince  to  the  end  ?" 

"I  suppose  we'll  have  to;  won't  we, 
sister?" 

"  Yes,  we'll  leave  it  all  to  you,  uncle," 
said  the  niece ;  and  she  thought  she 
would  coax  him  up  a  little,  and  so  she 
went  on :  "I  know  you  won't  be  mean 
about  it.  Will  he,  brother  2" 

"No,"  said  the  nephew.  "I'll  bet 
the  Prince  will  keep  a  Prince  all  the 
way  through.  What'll  you  bet,  sister  ?" 

"I  won't  bet  anything,"  said  the 
niece,  and  she  put  her  arm  round  the 
papa's  neck,  and  pressed  her  cheek  up 
against  his.  "  I'll  just  leave  it  to  uncle, 
and  if  it  does  turn  into  a  little-pig  story, 
it'll  be  for  the  moral." 


FLUTTERBYBUTTERFLY.  115 

The  nephew  was  not  quite  sure  what 
a  moral  was ;  but  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  he  would  just  as  soon  have  it  a 
little-pig  story  as  not.  He  had  got  to 
thinking  how  funny  a  little  pig  would 
look  in  a  Prince's  clothes,  and  he  said, 
"  Yes,  it'll  be  for  the  moral.'' 

The  papa  was  very  contrary  that 
morning.  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  I  don't 
know  about  that.  I'm  not  sure  there's 
going  to  be  any  moral." 

"  Oh,  goody  !"  said  the  niece,  and  she 
clapped  her  hands  in  great  delight. 
"  Then  it's  going  to  be  a  Prince  story 
all  through !" 

"  If  you  interrupt  me  in  that  wa}r,  it's 
not  going  to  be  any  story  at  all." 

"I  didn't  know  you  had  begun  it, 
uncle,"  pleaded  the  niece. 

"  Well,  I  hadn't.  But  I  was  just  go 
ing  to."  The  papa  lay  quiet  a  while. 
The  fact  is,  he  had  not  thought  up  any 
story  at  all ;  and  he  was  so  tired  of  all 
the  stories  he  used  to  tell  his  own  chil- 


116     BUTTERFLY FLUTTERBY  AND 

dren  that  he  could  not  bear  to  tell  one 
of  them,  though  he  knew  very  well 
that  the  niece  and  nephew  would  be 
just  as  glad  of  it  as  if  it  were  new,  and 
maybe  gladder;  for  they  had  heard  a 
great  deal  about  these  stories,  how  per 
fectly  splendid  they  were  —  like  the 
Pumpkin-Glory,  and  the  Little  Pig  that 
took  the  Poison  Pills,  and  the  Proud 
Little  Horse-car  that  fell  in  Love  with 
the  Pullman  Sleeper,  and  Jap  Doll 
Hopsing's  Adventures  in  Crossing  the 
Continent,  and  the  Enchantment  of  the 
Greedy  Travellers,  and  the  Little  Boy 
whose  Legs  turned  into  Bicycle  Wheels. 
At  last  the  papa  said,  "  This  is  a  very 
peculiar  kind  of  a  story.  It's  about  a 
Prince  and  a  Princess." 

"Oh!"  went  both  of  the  children; 
and  then  they  stopped  themselves,  and 
stuffed  the  covering  into  their  mouths. 

The  papa  lifted  himself  on  his  elbow 
and  stared  severely  at  them,  first  at  one, 
and  then  at  the  other.  "  Have  you  fin- 


FLUTTEKBYBU TTERFLY.  117 

ished  ?"  he  asked,  as  if  they  had  inter 
rupted  him ;  but  he  really  wanted  to 
gain  time,  so  as  to  think  up  a  story  of 
some  kind.  The  children  were  afraid 
to  say  anything,  and  the  papa  went  on 
with  freezing  politeness :  "  Because  if 
you  have,  I  might  like  to  say  something 
myself.  This  story  is  about  a  Prince 
and  a  Princess,  but  the  thing  of  it  is 
that  they  had  names  almost  exactly 
alike.  They  were  twins ;  the  Prince 
was  a  boy  and  the  Princess  was  a  girl ; 
that  was  a  point  that  their  fairy  god 
mother  carried  against  the  wicked  en 
chantress  who  tried  to  have  it  just  the 
other  way  ;  but  it  made  the  wicked  en 
chantress  so  mad  that  the  fairy  god 
mother  had  to  give  in  to  her  a  little,  and 
let  them  be  named  almost  exactly  alike." 
Here  the  papa  stopped,  and  after 
waiting  for  him  to  go  on,  the  nephew 
ventured  to  ask,  very  respectfully  in 
deed,  "Would  you  mind  telling  us  what 
their  names  were,  uncle  S" 


118  BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

The  papa  rubbed  his  forehead.  "I 
have  such  a  bad  memory  for  names. 
Hold  on!  "Wait  a  minute!  I  remem 
ber  now  !  Their  names  were  Butterfly- 
flutterby  and  Flutterbybutterfly."  Of 
course  he  had  just  thought  up  the  names. 

"  And  which  was  which,  uncle  dear  ?" 
asked  the  niece,  not  only  very  respect 
fully,  but  very  affectionately,  too  ;  she 
was  so  afraid  he  would  get  mad  again, 
and  stop  altogether. 

""Why,  I  should  think  you  would 
know  a  girl's  name  when  you  heard  it. 
Butterflyflutterby  was  the  Prince  and 
Flutterbybutterfly  was  the  Princess." 

"  I  don't  see  how  we're  ever  going  to 
keep  them  apart,"  sighed  the  niece. 

"You've  got  to  keep  them  apart," 
said  the  papa.  "  Because  it's  the  great 
thing  about  the  story  that  if  you  can't 
remember  which  is  the  Prince  and  which 
is  the  Princess  whenever  I  ask  you,  the 
story  has  to  stop.  It  can't  help  it,  and 
/can't  help  it." 


FLUTTERBYBUTTERFLY.  1 1  <J 

They  knew  he  was  just  setting  a  trap 
for  them,  and  the  same  thought  struck 
them  both  at  once.  They  rose  up  and 
leaned  over  the  papa,  with  their  arms 
across  and  their  fluffy  heads  together 
in  the  form  of  a  capital  letter  A,  and 
whispered  in  each  other's  ears,  "You. 
say  it's  one,  and  I'll  say  it's  the  other, 
and  then  we'll  have  it  right  between 
us." 

They  dropped  back  and  pulled  the 
covering  up  to  their  chins,  and  shouted, 
"Don't  you  tell!  don't  you  tell!"  and 
just  perfectly  wriggled  with  triumph. 

The  papa  had  heard  every  word ; 
they  were  laughing  so  that  they  whis 
pered  almost  as  loud  as  talking ;  but  he 
pretended  that  he  had  not  understood, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would 
have  them  yet.  "  A  little  and  a  more," 
he  said,  "and  I  should  never  have  gone 
on  again." 

"  Go  on  !  Go  on  !"  they  called  out, 
and  then  they  wriggled  and  giggled  till 


120  BUTTERFLYFLUTTEKBY    AND 

anybody  would  have  thought  they  were 
both  crazy. 

"  "Well,  where  was  I  ?"  This  was  an 
other  of  the  papa's  tricks  to  gain  time. 
Whenever  he  could  not  think  of  any 
thing  more,  he  always  asked,  "  Well, 
.where  was  I  ?"  He  now  added  :  "  Oh 
yes !  I  remember !  Well,  once  there 
were  a  Prince  and  a  Princess,  and  their 
names  were  Butterfly flutterby  and  Flut- 
terbybutterfly ;  and  they  were  both 
twins,  and  both  orphans ;  but  they  made 
their  home  with  their  fairy  godmother 
as  long  as  they  were  little,  and  they 
used  to  help  her  about  the  house  for 
part  board,  and  she  helped  them  about 
their  kingdom,  and  kept  it  in  good  or 
der  for  them,  and  left  them  plenty  of 
time  to  play  and  enjoy  themselves.  She 
was  the  greatest  person  for  order  there 
ever  was ;  and  if  she  found  a  speck  of 
dust  or  dirt  on  the  kingdom  anywhere, 
she  would  have  out  the  whole  army 
and  make  them  wash  it  up,  and  then 


FLUTTERS Y BUTTERFLY.  123 

sand-paper  the  place,  and  polish  it  with 
a  coarse  towel  till  it  perfectly  glistened. 
The  father  of  the  Prince  and  Princess 
had  taken  the  precaution,  before  he 
died,  to  subdue  all  his  enemies ;  and  the 
consequence  was  that  the  longest  kind 
of  peace  had  set  in,  and  the  army  had 
nothing  to  do  but  keep  the  kingdom 
clean.  That  was  the  reason  why  the 
fairy  godmother  had  made  the  Gener 
al-in-Chief  take  their  guns  away,  and 
arm  them  with  long  feather -dusters. 
They  marched  Avith  the  poles  on  their 
shoulders,  and  carried  the  dusters  in 
their  belts,  like  bayonets ;  and  whenever 
they  came  to  a  place  that  the  fairy  god 
mother  said  needed  dusting  —  she  al 
ways  went  along  with  them  in  a  dia 
mond  chariot  —  she  made  the  General 
halloo  out :  '  Fix  dusters !  Make  ready ! 
Aim!  Dust!'  And  then  the  place 
would  be  cleaned  up.  But  the  Gener 
al-in-Chief  used  to  go  out  behind  the 
church  and  cry,  it  mortified  him  so  to 


124  BUTTEKFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

have  to  give  such  orders,  and  it  re 
minded  him  so  painfully  of  the  good 
old  times  when  he  would  order  his  men 
to  charge  the  enemy,  and  cover  the  field 
with  gore  and  blood,  instead  of  having 
it  so  awfully  spick-and-span  as  it  was 
now.  Still  he  did  what  the  fairy  god 
mother  told  him,  because  he  said  it  was 
his  duty;  and  he  kept  his  troops  sup 
plied  with  sudsine  and  dustene,  to  clean 
up  with,  and  brushes  and  towels.  The 
fairy  godmother — 

"  Excuse  me,  uncle,"  said  the  nephew, 
with  extreme  deference, "  but  I  should 
just  like  to  ask  you  one  question.  Will 
you  let  me  ?" 

"What  is  it?"  said  the  papa,  in  the 
grimmest  kind  of  manner  he  could  put 
on. 

"Ah,  brother!"  murmured  the  niece; 
for  she  knew  that  he  was  rather  sarcas 
tic,  and  she  was  afraid  that  something 
ironical  was  coming. 

"Well,  I  just  wanted  to  ask  whether 


• 


"  TIIK    fiENERAL-IN-CHIEF    USED    TO    GO    BEHIND 
TIIK    CHURCH    AND    CRY." 


FLUTTERHYBrTTKRFLY.  127 

this  story  was  about  the  fairy  godmoth 
er,  or  about  the  Prince  and  Princess." 

"  Very  well,  now,"  said  the  papa. 
"  You've  asked  your  question.  I  didn't 
promise  to  answer  it,  and  I'm  happy  to 
say  it  stops  the  story.  I'll  guess  /'//  go 
to  sleep  again.  I  don't  like  being  waked 
up  this  way  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
anyhow." 

"Now,  brother,  I  hope  you're  satis- 
lied  !"  said  the  niece. 

The  nephew  evaded  the  point.  He 
said :  "  Well,  sister,  if  the  story  really 
isn't  going  on,  I  should  like  to  ask 
uncle  another  question.  How  big  was 
the  fairy  godmother's  diamond  char 
iot?" 

"It  was  the  usual  sized  chariot,"  an 
swered  the  papa. 

"  Whew !  It  must  have  been  a  pretty 
big  diamond,  then !" 

"  It  was  a  very  big  diamond,"  said 
the  papa ;  and  he  seemed  to  forget  all 
about  being  mad,  or  else  he  had  thought 


128  BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY   AND 

up  some  more  of  the  story  to  tell,  for 
he  went  on  just  as  if  nothing  had  hap 
pened.  "  The  fairy  godmother  was  so 
severe  with  the  dirt  she  found  because 
it  was  a  royal  prerogative — that  is,  no 
body  but  the  King,  or  the  King's  fam 
ily,  had  a  right  to  make  a  mess,  and  if 
other  people  did  it,  they  were  infringing 
on  the  royal  prerogative. 

"  You  know,"  the  papa  explained, 
"that  in  old  times  and  countries  the 
royal  family  have  been  allowed  to  do 
things  that  no  other  family  would  have 
been  associated  with  if  they  had  done 
them.  That  is  about  the  only  use  there 
is  in  having  a.  royal  family.  But  the 
fairy  godmother  of  Prince — 

"Butterflyflutterby,"  said  the  niece. 

"  And  Princess— 

"  Flutterbybutterfly,"  said  the  neph 
ew. 

"  Correct,"  said  the  papa. 

The  children  rose  up  into  a  capital  A 
again,  and  whispered,  "  He  didn't  catch 


FUJmtBBYBUTTEBFLY.  1 20 

us  that  time,"  and  fell  back,  laughing, 
and  the  papa  had  to  go  on. 

"The  fairy  godmother  thought  she 
would  try  to  bring  up  the  Prince  and 
Princess  rather  better  than  most  Princes 
and  Princesses  were  brought  up,  and  so 
she  said  that  the  only  thing  they  should 
be  allowed  to  do  different  from  other 
people  was  to  make  a  mess.  If  any 
other  persons  were  caught  making  a 
mess  they  were  banished  ;  and  there 
was  another  law  that  was  perfectly  aw 
ful." 

"  What  -  was  -  it  -  go  -  ahead  ?"  said  the 
nephew,  running  all  his  words  together, 
he  was  so  anxious  to  know. 

"  Why,  if  any  person  was  found  clear 
ing  up  anywhere,  and  it  turned  out  to 
be  a  mess  that  the  royal  twins  had 
made,  the  person  was  thrown  from  a 
tower.*' 

"  Did  it  kill  them  '."  the  niece  inquired, 
rather  faintly. 

"  Well,  no,  it  didn't  kill  them  exact- 

9 


130  BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

ly,  but  it  bounced  them  up  pretty  high. 
You  see,  they  fell  on  a  bed  of  India- 
rubber  about  twenty  feet  deep.  It  gave 
them  a  good  scare  ;  and  that's  the  great 
thing  in  throwing  persons  from  a  high 
tower." 

The  nephew  hastened  to  improve  the 
opportunity  which  seemed  to  be  given 
for  asking  questions. 

"  What  do  you  mean  exactly  by  mak 
ing  a  mess,  uncle  ?" 

"  Oh,  scattering  scraps  of  paper  about, 
or  scuffing  the  landscape,  or  getting  jam 
or  molasses  on  the  face  of  nature,  or 
having  bonfires  in  the  back  yard  of  the 
palace,  or  leaving  dolls  around  on  the 
throne.  But  what  did  I  say  about  ask 
ing  questions  ?  Now  there's  another 
thing  about  this  story :  when  it  comes 
to  the  exciting  part,  if  you  move  the 
least  bit,  or  even  breathe  loud,  the  story 
stops,  just  as  if  you  didn't  know  which 
was  the  Prince  and  which  was  the  Prin 
cess.  Now  do  vou  understand  ?" 


FLUTTE  R BY BUTTERFLY. 


131 


The  children  both  said  "Yes"  in  a 
very  small  whisper,  and  cowered  down 
almost  under  the  clothing,  and  held  on 
tight,  so  as  to  keep  from 
stirring. 

The  papa  went 
on:  "Well, 
about  the 
time  they 

had  got  JffiSte&A     these  two 

laws  in  full 
force,  and 
forty      or 
fifty  thou 
sand  boys 
and  girls  had  been 
banished  for  making 
a  mess,   and  pretty 
nearly  all  the  neat 
old  ladies  in  the  king 
dom  had  been  thrown 
from  a  high  tower 
for  cleaning  up  after  the  Prince  and  Prin 
cess  Butterflyflutterby  and  Flutterby- 


'THE  YOrX(!  KHAN  AND  K1IANT 
KXTKKKP  TMK  KIXCIKIM  WITH  \ 
MAtl.NIFK  KNT  UKTINTK." 


132  BUTTEEFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

butterfly,  the  young  Khan  and  Khant  of 
Tartary  entered  the  kingdom  with  a 
magnificent  retinue  of  followers,'  to  se 
lect  a  bride  and  groom  from  the  children 
of  the  royal  family.  As  there  were  no 
children  in  the  royal  family  except  the 
twins,  the  choice  of  the  Khan  and  Khant 
naturally  fell  upon  the  Prince— 

"  Butterflyflutterby !" 

"  And  the  Princess — 

"  Flutterbybutterfly !" 

"  Correct.  It  also  happened  that  the 
Khan  and  the  Khant  were  brother  and 
sister;  but  if  you  can't  tell  which  was 
the  brother  and  which  was  the  sister, 
the  story  stops  at  this  point." 

"  Why,  but,  uncle,"  said  the  little  girl, 
reproachfully,  "you  haven't  ever  told 
us  which  is  which  yourself  yet !" 

"  I  know  it.  Because  I'm  waiting  to 
find  out.  You  see,  with  these  Asiatic 
names  it's  impossible  sometijnes  to  tell 
which  is  which.  You  have  to  wait  and 
see  how  they  will  act.  If  there  had 


1  l.rn  KKBYBUTTERFLY.  1:5:5 

been  a  battle  anywhere,  and  one  of 
them  had  screamed,  and  run  away,  then 
I  suppose  I  should  have  been  pretty 
sure  it  was  the  sister;  but  even  then  I 
shouldn't  know  which  was  the  Khan 
and  whick  was  the  Khant." 

"  Well,  what  are  we  going  to  do  about 
it,  then  ?"  asked  the  nephew. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  papa.  "  We 
shall  just  have  to  keep  on  and  see.  Per 
haps  when  they  meet  the  Prince  and 
Princess  we  shall  find  out.  I  don't  sup 
pose  a  boy  would  fall  in  love  with  a 
boy." 

"No,"  said  the  niece;  "but  he  might 
want  to  go  off  with  him  and  have  fun, 
or  something." 

"  That's  true,"  said  the  papa.  "  We've 
got  to  all  watch  out.  Of  course  the 
Khan  and  the  Khant  scuffed  the  land 
scape  awfully,  as  they  came  along 
through  the  kingdom,  and  got  the  face 
of  nature  all  daubed  up  with  marma 
lade —  they  were  the  greatest  persons 


134  BUTTEKFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

for  marmalade — and  when  they  reached 
the  palace  of  the  Prince  and  Princess 
they  had  to  camp  out  in  the  back  yard, 
and  they  had  to  have  bonfires  to  cook 
by,  and  they  made  a  frightful  mess. 

"  Well,  there  was  the  greatest  excite 
ment  about  it  that  there  ever  was.  The 
General-in-Chief  kept  his  men  under 
.  arms  night  and  day,  and  the  fairy  god 
mother  was  so  worked  up  she  almost 
had  a  brain-fever  ;  and  if  she  had  not 
taken  six  of  aconite  every  night  when 
she  went  to  bed  she  would  have  had. 
You  see,  the  question  was  what  to  do 
about  the  mess  that  the  Khan  and 
Khant  made.  They  were  visitors,  and 
it  wouldn't  have  been  polite  to  banish 
them  ;  and  they  belonged  to  a  royal 
family,  and  so  nobody  dared  to  clean  up 
after  them:.  The  whole  kingdom  was 
in  the  most  disgusting  state,  and  when 
ever  the  fairy  godmother  looked  into 
the  back  yard  of  the  palace  she  felt  as 
if  she  would  go  through  the  floor. 


!•  I.lTTKUr.YlirTTKRFLY.  137 

"  Well,  it  kept  on  going  from  bad  to 
worse.  The  only  person  that  enjoyed 
herself  was  the  wicked  enchantress ;  she 
never  had  such  a  good  time  in  her  life ; 
and  when  the  fairy  godmother  got  hold 
of  the  Grand  Vizier  and  the  Cadi,  and 
told  them  to  make  a  new  law  so  as  to 
allow  the  army  to  clean  up  after  roval 
visitors,  without  being  thrown  from  a 
high  tower,  the  wicked  enchantress  en 
chanted  the  whole  mess,  so  that  the 
army  could  not  tell  which  the  Prince 
and  Princess  had  made,  and  which  the 
Khan  and  Khant  had  made ;  they  were 
all  four  always  playing  together,  any 
way. 

"  It  seemed  as  if  the  poor  old  fairy 
godmother  would  go  perfectly  wild,  and 
she  almost  made  the  General  crazy  giv 
ing  orders  in  one  breath,  and  taking 
them  back  in  the  next.  She  said  that 
now  something  had  got  to  be  done  ;  she 
had  stood  it  long  enough  ;  and  she  was 
going  to  take  the  case  into  her  own 


138  BUTTERFLYFLl'TTERBY    AND 

hands.  She  saw  that  she  should  have 
no  peace  of  her  life  till  the  Prince  and 
Princess  and  the  Khan  and  Khant  were 
married.  She  sent  for  the  head  Imam, 
and  told  him  to  bring  those  children 
right  in  and  marry  them,  and  she  would 
be  responsible. 

"  The  Imam  put  his  head  to  the  floor 
— and  it  was  pretty  hard  on  him,  for  he 
was  short  and  stout,  and  he  had  to  do 
it  kind  of  sideways — and  said  to  hear 
was  to  obey ;  but  he  could  not  marry 
them  unless  he  knew  which  was  which. 

"  The  fairy  godmother  screamed  out : 
'  I  don't  care  which  is  which !  Marry 
them  all,  just  as  they  are !' 

"  But  when  she  came  to  think  it  overy 
she  saw  that  this  would  not  do,  and  so 
she  tried  to  invent  some  way  out  of  the 
trouble.  One  morning  she  woke  up 
with  a  splendid  idea,  and  she  could 
hardly  wait  to  have  breakfast  before 
she  sent  for  the  General-in-Chief.  Her 
nerves  were  all  gone,  and  as  soon  as  she 


H.riTi-:i:i;y  i:i  i  i  KKFI.Y.  141 

saw  him,  she  yelled  at  him:  'A  sham 
battle  —  to-day  —  now —  this  very  in 
stant!  Right  away,  right  away,  right 
away!' 

"  The  General  got  her  to  explain  her 
self,  and  then  he  understood  that  she 
wanted  him  to  have  a  grand  review  and 
sham  battle  of  all  the  troops,  in  honor 
of  the  Khan  and  Khant ;  and  the  whole 
court  had  to  be  present,  and  especially 
the  timidest  of  the  ladies,  that  would 
almost  scare  a  person  to  death  by  the 
way  they  screamed  when  they  were 
frightened.  The  General  was  just  go 
ing  to  say  that  the  guns  and  cannon 
had  all  got  rusty,  and  the  powder  was 
spoiled  from  not  having  been  used  for 
so  long,  with  the  everlasting  cleaning  up 
that  had  been  going  on ;  but  the  fairy 
godmother  stamped  her  foot  and  sent 
him  flying.  So  the  only  thing  he  could 
do  was  to  set  all  the  gnomes  at  work 
making  guns  and  cannon  and  powder, 
and  about  twelve  o'clock  they  had  them 


142  BUTTERFLYFLUTTERBY    AND 

ready,  and  just  after  lunch  the  sham 
battle  began. 

"The  troops  inarched  and  counter 
marched,  and  fired  away  the  whole  af 
ternoon,  and  sprang  mines  and  blew  up 
magazines,  and  threw  cannon  crackers 
and  cannon  torpedoes.  There  was  such 
an  awful  din  and  racket  that  you  couldn't 
hear  yourself  think,  and  some  of  the 
court  ladies  were  made  perfectly  sick  by 
it.  They  all  asked  to  be  excused,  but 
the  fairy  godmother  wouldn't  excuse 
one  of  them.  She  just  kept  them  there 
on  the  seats  round  the  battle-field,  and 
let  them  shriek  themselves  hoarse.  So 
many  of 'them  fainted  that  they  had  to 
have  the  garden  hose  brought,  and  they 
kept  it  sprinkling  away  on  their  faces 
all  the  afternoon. 

"But  it  was  a  failure  as  far  as  the 
Khan  and  the  Khant  were  concerned. 
The  fairy  godmother  expected  that  as 
soon  as  the  loudest  firing  began,  the 
girl,  whichever  it  was,  would  scream, 


FLUTTERBYBUTTEKI  I  V.  145 

and  so  they  would  know  which  was 
Avhich.  But  the  Khan  and  Khant's  fa 
ther  had  been  a  famous  warrior,  and  he 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  taking  his  chil 
dren  to  battle  with  him  from  their  ear 
liest  years,  partly  because  his  wife  was 
dead  and  he  didn't  dare  trust  them 
with  the  careless  nurse  at  home,  and 
partly  because  he  wanted  to  harden 
their  nerves.  So  now  they  just  clapped 
their  hands,  and  enjoyed  the  sham  bat 
tle  down  to  the  ground. 

"  About  sunset  the  fairy  godmother 
gave  it  up.  She  had  to,  anyway.  The 
troops  had  shot  away  all  their  powder, 
and  the  gnomes  couldn't  make  any  more 
till  the  next  day.  So  she  set  out  to  re 
turn  to  the  city,  with  all  the  court  fol 
lowing  her  diamond  chariot,  and  I  can 
tell  you  she  felt  pretty  gloomy.  She 
told  the  Grand  Vizier  that  now  she 
didn't  see  any  end  to  the  trouble,  and 
she  was  just  going  into  hysterics  when 

a  barefooted  boy  came  along  driving 
10 


146  BUTTERFLYFLUTTEKBY   AND 

his  cow  home  from  the  pasture.  The 
fairy  godmother  didn't  mind  it  much, 
for  she  was  in  her  chariot ;  but  the 
court  ladies  were  on  foot,  and  they  be 
gan  to  scream, '  Oh,  the  cow !  the  cow  !' 
and  to  take  hold  of  the  knights,  and  to 
get  on  to  the  fence,  till  it  was  perfectly 
packed  with  them ;  and  who  do  you 
think  the  fairy  godmother  found  had 
scrambled  up  on  top  of  her  chariot  <" 

The  nephew  and  niece  were  afraid  to 
risk  a  guess,  and  the  papa  had  to  say  : 

"  The  Khant !  The  fairy  godmother 
pulled  her  inside  and  hugged  her  and 
kissed  her,  she  was  so  glad  to  find  out 
that  she  was  the  one ;  and  she  stopped 
the  procession  on  the  spot,  and  she  called 
up  the  Imam,  and  he  married  the  Khant 
to  Prince— 

The  papa  stopped,  and  as  the  niece 
and  nephew  hesitated,  he  said,  very 
sternly,  "Well?" 

The  fact  is,  they  had  got  so  mixed  up 
about  the  Khan  and  the  Khant  of  Tar- 


FLUTTKRIiY  lil  TTKKFLY.  147 

tary  that  they  had  forgotten  which  was 
Butterflyflutterby  and  which  was  Flut- 
terbybutterfly.  They  tried,  shouting 
out  one  the  one  and  the  other  the  other, 
but  the  papa  said  : 

"Oh  no!  That  won't  work.  I've 
had  that  sort  of  thing  tried  on  me  be 
fore,  and  it  never  works,  /heard  you 
whispering  what  you  would  do,  and  you 
have  simply  added  the  crime  of  double- 
dealing  to  the  crime  of  inattention.  The 
story  has  stopped,  and  stopped  forever." 

The  nephew  stretched  himself  and 
then  sat  up  in  bed.  "  Well,  it  had  got 
to  the  end,  anyway." 

"  Oh,  had  it  ?  What  became  of  the 
wicked  enchantress  ?"  The  nephew  lay 
down  again,  in  considerable  dismay. 

"  Uncle,"  said  the  niece,  very  coaxing- 
ly,  "/didn't  say  it  had  come  to  the  end." 

"But  it  has,"  said  the  papa.  "And 
I'm  mighty  glad  you  forgot  the  Prince's 
name,  for  the  rule  of  this  story  is  that 
it  has  to  go  on  as  long  as  any  one  listen- 


148  BUTTERFLYFLUTTEKBY    AND 

ing  remembers,  and  it  might  have  gone 
on  forever." 

"  I  suppose,"  the  nephe\v  said,  "  a  per 
son  may  guess  ?" 

"  He  may,  if  he  guesses  right.  If  he 
guesses  wrong,  he  has  to  be  thrown  from 
a  high  tower — the  same  one  the  wicked 
enchantress  was  thrown  from." 

"There !"  shouted  the  nephew  ;  "you 
said  you  wouldn't  tell.  How  high  was 
the  tower,  anyway,  uncle  ?  As  high  as 
the  Eiffel  Tower  in  Paris •?" 

"]Srot  quite.  It  was  three  feet  and 
five  inches  high." 

"  Ho !  Then  the  enchantress  was  a 
dwarf!" 

"Who  said  she  was  a  dwarf?" 

"There  wouldn't  be  any  use  throw 
ing  her  from  the  tower  if  she  wasn't." 

"  I  didn't  say  it  was  any  use.  They 
just  did  it  for  ornament." 

This  made  the  nephew  so  mad  that 
he  began  to  dig  the  papa  with  his  fist, 
and  the  papa  began  to  laugh.  He  said, 


i  u  TTKiiUYBrTTKKFLY.  149 

as  \vell  as  he  could  for  laughing :  "  You 
see,  the  trouble  was  to  keep  her  from 
bouncing  up  higher  than  the  top  of  the 
tower.  She  was  light  weight,  anyway, 
because  she  was  a  witch  ;  and  after  the 
first  bounce  they  had  to  have  two  exe 
cutioners  to  keep  throwing  her  down— 
a  day  executioner  and  a  night  execu 
tioner  ;  and  she  went  so  fast  up  and 
down  that  she  was  just  like  a  solid  col 
umn  of  enchantress.  She  enjoyed  it  first- 
rate,  but  it  kept  her  out  of  mischief." 

"  Now,  uncle,"  said  the  niece,  "  you're 
just  letting  yourself  go.  What  did  the 
fairy  godmother  do  after  they  all  got 
married  ?" 

••  Well,  the  story  don't  say  exactly. 
But  there's  a  report  that  when  she  be 
came  a  fairy  grandgodmother,  she  was 
not  half  so  severe  about  cleaning  up,  and 
let  the  poor  old  General-in-Chief  have 
some  peace  of  his  life  —  or  some  war. 
There  was  a  rebellion  among  the  genii 
not  long  afterwards,  and  the  General  was 


150  BUTTERFLYFLUTTEKBY. 

about  ten  or  fifteen  years  putting  them 
down." 

The  nephew  had  been  lying  quiet  a 
moment.  Now  he  began  to  laugh. 

"What  are  you  laughing  at?"  de 
manded  his  uncle. 

"  The  way  that  Khant  scrambled  up 
on  top  of  the  chariot  when  the  cow 
came  along.  Just  like  a  girl.  They're 
all  afraid  of  cows." 

The  tears  came  into  the  niece's  eyes; 
she  had  a  great  many  feelings,  and  they 
were  easily  hurt,  especially  her  feelings 
about  girls. 

""Well,  she  wasn't  afraid  of  the  can 
non,  anyway." 

"  That  is  a  very  just  remark,"  said  the 
uncle.  "  And  now  what  do  you  say  to 
breakfast  ?" 

The  children  sprang  out  of  bed,  and 
tried  which  could  beat  to  the  door. 
They  forgot  to  thank  the  uncle,  but  he 
did  not  seem  to  have  expected  any 
thanks. 


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